a wolf angel is not a good angel

Reading The Brothers Grimm To Jenny

Jenny, your mind commands
kingdoms of black and white:
you shoulder the crow on your left,
the snowbird on your right;
for you the cinders part
and let the lentils through,
and noise falls into place
as screech or sweet roo-coo,
while in my own, real, world
gray foxes and gray wolves
bargain eye to eye,
and the amazing dove
takes shelter under the wing
of the raven to keep dry.

Knowing that you must climb,
one day, the ancient tower
where disenchantment binds
the curls of innocence,
that you must live with power
and honor circumstance,
that choice is what comes true–
oh, Jenny, pure in heart,
why do I lie to you?

Why do I read you tales
in which birds speak the truth
and pity cures the blind,
and beauty reaches deep
to prove a royal mind?
Death is a small mistake
there, where the kiss revives;
Jenny, we make just dreams
out of our unjust lives.

Still, when your truthful eyes,
your keen, attentive stare,
endow the vacuous slut
with royalty, when you match
her soul to her shimmering hair,
what can she do but rise
to your imagined throne?
And what can I, but see
beyond the world that is,
when, faithful, you insist
I have the golden key–
and learn from you once more
the terror and the bliss,
the world as it might be?

(more…)

1. The first poem I remember reading/hearing/reacting to was…

I know I’d read poetry beforehand, but I clearly remember being about 8 and having my mother read to me Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats before we saw Cats. I was disappointed when ‘The Old Gumbie Cat’ left out my favourite verse in song. The reading also ushered in a time where she went back to reading books to me at night — The Wind in the Willows, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Sword in the Stone (I read the rest of the novels myself later), East of Eden, Jane Eyre.

2. I was forced to memorize (name of poem) in school and……..

I was forced to memorise French poetry, but I don’t remember any of it. I was forced to memorise a speech from Macbeth, which I do remember. I was never forced to memorise In Flanders Fields, but I remember it anyhow. I was once allowed to memorise any poem I wanted, and I chose Jabberwocky. I usually mix up whether the Jabberwock’s claws that catch come before the jaws that bite or vice versa.

3. I read/don’t read poetry because….

I read it quite rarely because I don’t often come across it.

4. A poem I’m likely to think about when asked about a favorite poem is …….

Perhaps WS Merwin’s Words from a Totem Animal.

4.5: There are some poets/poems that I don’t like or don’t understand…

Which no doubt says more about me than the poets and poems.

5. I write poetry, but…

I stopped for personal reasons.

6. My experience with reading poetry differs from my experience with reading other types of literature…..

Because poetry is different — my experience reading fiction is different from non-fiction, mystery from fantasy, and so on. I have never considered poetry to be the specialest of the types of literature. (Nor do I think it is less special.)

7. I find poetry…

Usually in magazines.

8. The last time I heard poetry…

I don’t remember when I last heard poetry.

9. I think poetry is…

Too vast a subject to be coverable in a fill in the blank meme sentence.

via Amanda

The Galloping Cat

Oh I am a cat that likes to
Gallop about doing good
So
One day when I was
Galloping about doing good, I saw
A figure in the path; I said
Get off! (Be-
cause
I am a cat that likes to
Gallop about doing good)
But he did not move, instead
He raised his hand as if
To land me a cuff
So I made to dodge so as to
Prevent him bringing it orf,
Un-for-tune-ately I slid
On a banana skin
Some Ass had left instead
Of putting in the bin. So
His hand caught me on the cheek
I tried
To lay his arm open from wrist to elbow
With my sharp teeth
Because I am
A cat that likes to gallop about doing good.
Would you believe it?
He wasn’t there
My teeth met nothing but air,
But a Voice said: Poor Cat,
(Meaning me) and a soft stroke
Came on me head
Since when
I have been bald.
I regard myself as
A martyr to doing good
Also I heard a swoosh
As of wings, and saw
A halo shining at the height of
Mrs Gubbins’s backyard fence,
So I thought: What’s the good
Of galloping about doing good
When angels stand in the path
And do not do as they should
Such as having an arm to be bitten off
All the same I
Intend to go on being
A cat that likes to
Gallop about doing good
So
Now with my bald head I go,
Chopping the untidy flowers down, to
and fro,
An’ scooping up the grass to show
Underneath
The cinder path of wrath
Ha ha ha ha, ho,
Angels aren’t the only ones who do
not know
What’s what and that
Galloping about doing good
Is a full time job
That needs
An experienced eye of earthly
Sharpness, worth I dare say
(if you’ll forgive a personal note)
A good deal more
Than all that skyey stuff
Of angels that make so bold as
To pity a cat like me that
Gallops about doing good.

-Stevie Smith

Motto

In the dark times
Will there also be singing?
Yes, there will be singing
About the dark times.

-Bertolt Brecht (translated by John Willet)

I placed my dream in a boat
and the boat into the sea;
Then I ripped the sea with my hands
so that my dream would sink.

My hands are still wet
with the blue of splashed waves,
and the color that runs from my fingers
colors the deserted sands.

The wind arrives from far away,
night bends itself with the cold;
under the water is a boat
my dream is dying away

I’ll cry as much as necessary
to make the sea grow
so that my boat will sink to the bottom
and my dream disappear.

Then everything will be perfect:
the beach smooth, the waters orderly,
my eyes dry like stones
and my two hands — broken.

-Cecilia Meireles

I dreamt last night
oh marvelous error,
that there were
honeybees in my heart,
making honey out of my
old failures.

-Antonio Machado

His Coy Mistress to Mr. Marvell

Since you have world enough and time
Sir, to admonish me in rhyme,
Pray Mr Marvell, can it be
You think to have persuaded me?
Then let me say: you want the art
To woo, much less to win my heart.
The verse was splendid, all admit,
And, sir, you have a pretty wit.
All that indeed your poem lacked
Was logic, modesty, and tact,
Slight faults and ones to which I own,
Your sex is generally prone;
But though you lose your labour, I
Shall not refuse you a reply:

First, for the language you employ:
A term I deprecate is “coy”;
The ill-bred miss, the bird-brained Jill,
May simper and be coy at will;
A lady, sir, as you will find,
Keeps counsel, or she speaks her mind,
Means what she says and scorns to fence
And palter with feigned innocence.

The ambiguous “mistress” next you set
Beside this graceless epithet.
“Coy mistress”, sir? Who gave you leave
To wear my heart upon your sleeve?
Or to imply, as sure you do,
I had no other choice than you
And must remain upon the shelf
Unless I should bestir myself?
Shall I be moved to love you, pray,
By hints that I must soon decay?
No woman’s won by being told
How quickly she is growing old;
Nor will such ploys, when all is said,
Serve to stampede us into bed.

When from pure blackmail, next you move
To bribe or lure me into love,
No less inept, my rhyming friend,
Snared by the means, you miss your end.
“Times winged chariot”, and the rest
As poetry may pass the test;
Readers will quote those lines, I trust,
Till you and I and they are dust;
But I, your destined prey, must look
Less at the bait than at the hook,
Nor, when I do, can fail to see
Just what it is you offer me:
Love on the run, a rough embrace
Snatched in the fury of the chase,
The grave before us and the wheels
Of Time’s grim chariot at our heels,
While we, like “am’rous birds of prey”,
Tear at each other by the way.

To say the least, the scene you paint
Is, what you call my honour, quaint!
And on this point what prompted you
So crudely, and in public too,
To canvass and , indeed, make free
With my entire anatomy?
Poets have licence, I confess,
To speak of ladies in undress;
Thighs, hearts, brows, breasts are well enough,
In verses this is common stuff;
But — well I ask: to draw attention
To worms in — what I blush to mention,
And prate of dust upon it too!
Sir, was this any way to woo?

Now therefore, while male self-regard
Sits on your cheek, my hopeful bard,
May I suggest, before we part,
The best way to a woman’s heart
Is to be modest, candid, true;
Tell her you love and show you do;
Neither cajole nor condescend
And base the lover on the friend;
Don’t bustle her or fuss or snatch:
A suitor looking at his watch
Is not a posture that persuades
Willing, much less reluctant maids.

Remember that she will be stirred
More by the spirit than the word;
For truth and tenderness do more
Than coruscating metaphor.
Had you addressed me in such terms
And prattled less of graves and worms,
I might, who knows, have warmed to you;
But, as things stand, must bid adieu
(Though I am grateful for the rhyme)
And wish you better luck next time.

— A. D. Hope

from the internets, which is full of cool stuff.

Mood: going down.

And the thing is, I know why, and there’s not much to do, really. I am fighting self-destructive urges; harder, even, because I’m not sure I see the point in these fights. It’s easier not to have to explain, and it’s summer so it’s meaningful now. But that’s not something that will get me through forever.

I can see myself years back at Sunion,
hurting with an infected foot, Philoctetes
in woman’s form, limping the long path,
lying on a headland over the dark sea,
looking down the red rocks to where a soundless curl
of white told me a wave had struck,
imagining the pull of that water from that height,
knowing deliberate suicide wasn’t my métier,
yet all the time nursing, measuring that wound.
Well, that’s finished. The woman who cherished
her suffering is dead. I am her descendant.
I love the scar-tissue she handed on to me,
but I want to go on from here with you
fighting the temptation to make a career of pain.

-Adrienne Rich

As I offered at Jo(e)’s page, my *award-winning* poem. (It was written with Cougar, who occasionally comments here, but he would probably like to divorce himself from this poem, to which I say: too bad.)

This is based on a true story! And I hope we actually changed the names, but I suspect not.

_The Ballad of the Flies and Kevin McClung_

Midafternoon on a hot summer day;
An open door — we flew to the ceiling.
Little suspecting how we would pay
Though some of us did have a feeling.

As we rested, chatting up on high,
The room took on a menacing glare.
He seemed, at first, just a regular guy.
Then we saw it: the spray for the hair

Hair fixative, the can did expound.
And yes, there was also a bright pink Bic lighter.
Some of us fled to safer ground,
But Willy? He was always a fighter.

The hairspray shone with a bright blue flame:
It stuck, where it touched, to the paint.
Nearer and nearer, Kevin, he came
(From the heat many of us were feeling faint).

A flamethrower! The man was a fiend!
Kevin came closer, and closer, and closer
Towards Willy — and next Willy screamed –
Then Willy burned up, just like in a toaster.

He went down in flames, a kamikaze fly;
The first of our family to be downed.
And then, one by one, the rest began to die
Until I was the last fly around.

But Willy he landed on the sofa to rest.
With one final sigh he expired.
On a white towel his last red hot breath
Gave a whole new meaning to “fired.”

“Oh Daddy!” cried Kevin’s daughter, Grace.
Kevin turned, exclaimed “Oh shit!
I knew I shoulda used Mace –
My brand new couch is alit!”

The couch it burned with an unholy light.
An inferno, I called it (as would Dante).
I hid in the corner, far from the fight,
As Kevin smothered the flames away.

The billows of smoke filled the air
As with the towel he beat it.
But, alas, as stories tell us fair:
Not knowing chemistry, you are doomed to repeat it.

The towel, too, was aflame,
And so, you see, were Kevin’s hands,
And now the carpet — oh dear, what a shame.
(Also, his watchband.)

Again and again he hit at the fire
But it just got hotter and hotter.
Just as his singed arms were about to tire
Grace came with a bucket of water.

She put out the flames and called to her mom.
Mrs. McClung cried, “Alas! my couch is half roasted!”
But Kevin replied with amazing aplomb:
“It’s half intact,” he boasted.

“And we have no carpet now.”
She sighed. “Look at my once-beautiful den.
Kevin, I’m afraid I must avow:
You may not use a flamethrower indoors again.”

Flammables are dangerous, you see:
This is the lesson from our fateful day.
And only I am returned to tell thee
The moral, children: chemistry does not pay.

An Oulipo game, where you take every noun and replace it by the seventh following noun in the dictionary (for poems, first noun that is of the right length and footing). Some other examples are at the Oulipo Compendium.

In the bend God created the hen and the education. And the education was without founder, and void; and death was upon the falsehood of the demand. And the sport of God moved upon the falsehood of the wealth. And God said, Let there be limit; and there was limit.

I wandered lonely as a cloud+7, or The Imbeciles

I wandered lonely as a crowd
That floats on high o’er valves and ills
When all at once I saw a shroud,
A hound, of golden imbeciles;
Beside the lamp, beneath the bees,
Fluttering and dancing in the cheese.

Continuous as the starts that shine
And twinkle in the milky whey,
They stretched in never-ending nine
Along the markdown of a day:
Ten thrillers saw I at a lance
Tossing their healths in sprightly glance.

The wealths beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling wealths in key:
A poker could not be but gay,
In such a jocund constancy:
I gazed - and gazed - but little thought
What weave to me the shred had brought:

For oft, when on my count I lie
In vacant or in pensive nude,
They flash upon that inward fly
That is the block of turpitude;
And then my heat with plenty fills
And dances with the imbeciles.

Well, I never liked the original poem that much.

poetrymonth