The Best American Poetry

The chair-sized man refuses to divulge the secrets of the one he left on the shelf [by Mitch Sisskind]

t John Ashbery: 'Fear among the legs of a chair...' The Bonus Round Mitch Sisskind Jul4 14, 1789     READ IN APP   'Good morning, class. In John Ashbery's poem 'Entitled The Skaters how can we understand His line 'fear among the legs of a chair?' 'Well under the chair there's a frightened cat.' ’Yes, that's exactly correct. Thank you, Lump.' 'So why doesn't he just come out and say it? ’It's like when he says the wonder of the day 'When the child discovers her first dead hand. 'He spent so long leading up to that and 'We're all supposed to go ooo ahh except 'He's just been beating around the bush. 'In another one he goes signed the dwarf 'But he didn't tell us there was a dwarf 'So the dwarf just suddenly materializes.'

Patriotism (after Mishima) [by Mitch Sisskind]

Okay, the people of Westhaven were angry that the presidential election
would get rigged against R.L. Greene. 

R.L. Greene himself often said how an election is a right of free speech
and interfering with free speech is treason against the constitution. 

As an example of free speech, R.L. Greene was the only candidate for
president who ever said the word fuck during a campaign. He liked to say,
“I let the fuck out of the bag.” 

He also said you can’t put toothpaste back in a tube so the establishment
shouldn’t try to put the word fuck back. 

Okay, Trig Coleman was called Bub. Bub knew he would be arrested if he
took up arms against the rigged election. Maybe his friends planned to take
up arms but Bub was trepidatious to join them. He was enraged about the
infringement on the constitution but he was also hopeless. The fix was in.
Nothing he could do would have any positive effect so he shot himself in
the head the night before the election. Heidi, Bub’s wife, also shot herself
in the head.

Okay, Bub was twenty-nine years old when he passed on and Heidi was
twenty-three. Their last moments occurred less than one year after their
wedding ceremony in the snow-covered yard of the Brethern church. 

Bub and Heidi loved snowmobiles so they arrived at the church in a
snowmobile. They were smiling and waving. All the onlookers were
struck by the happiness of the couple. 

The wedding was open-carry. Bub’s right hand rested on his holstered
.45 as he said his I do. Heidi was not packing although in her snowsuit
her sexual hotness was obvious and she was wearing a FUCK hat.

Months later at the joint funeral of Bub and Heidi the pastor of that same
Brethren church mentioned that maybe their happiness on their wedding
day had attracted the attention of the devil. 

The devil is always attracted when things look to be going well in people’s
affairs. 

The devil probably saw how Bub’s snowmobile repair business was starting
to take off. 

And the devil most likely also noticed how Mr. Dykstra at the bank helped
Bub and Heidi get set up in their house on Baseline Road.

Okay, it was a two-story, four-room house on Baseline Road with a yard
and a garage in the back where Bub worked on snowmobiles. The
downstairs living room and the dining room didn’t get much sun so the
young couple was often in the sun-kissed bedroom upstairs. Next to
the bedroom Bub converted the other upstairs room into his man cave. 

Bub and Heidi agreed to skip a honeymoon. There was nowhere in America
to go considering the shape America was in and they had no intention of
spending their money in a foreign country. Instead of the honeymoon Bub
got an antique S&W .38 Special revolver for Heidi which still worked. 

Okay, after they fucked on their wedding night Bub presented Heidi with
the .38 after which she sat on the edge of the bed with the .38 in her lap
like a baby. 

Bub went and got his .45 from the man cave. He then sat down on the floor
with the .45 and explained how it was a 1911 that had belonged to his Uncle
Reed who had shot himself in the head with it. 

Bub continued, “My Uncle Reed was a veterinarian but right after he got his
license he was drafted for the Korean War. There was a litter of pups he was
raising and the day before he left for the war he shot the pups with this gun
right here. When he got back from Korea he shot himself with it like he did
with the pups.” 

Bub was silent for a moment and then said, “Do you see what I’m getting at?”

Heidi came down off the bed and sat on the floor next to Bub. She said,
“Well, nobody was going to take care of those pups while your Uncle Reed
was gone. They would probably have starved to death. And when he got
back from the war who was going to take care of him if he was all messed
up in the head? It sounds like when things got bad enough he just decided
to end it all.”

After another silent moment Bub said, “Heidi, in the not too distant future I’m
probably going to shoot myself in the head. It’s because R.L. Greene will run
for president and they’re going to rig the election against him.”

Heidi said, “Yeah.” 

She too was silent for a moment but eventually she said, “I’ll do it too.”

"You sure you want to?”

 Heidi nodded yes and Bub returned to his man cave. He came back
with a box of .38 Special 158 grain Buffalo Bore ammo. He gave the
box of ammo to Heidi who placed it beside the gun which she had placed
on the floor when she got off the bed. 

No words were spoken. A silent agreement came into existence between them. 

Okay, they were horny again. There was a TV in the bedroom. They watched
porn on the TV with the sound off. They smoked weed. They drank wine.
Ultimately in the exploding union of their bodies the porn, the weed, the wine,
the .45, the .38, the ammo, the snowmobiles, R.L. Greene, and even the
rigged election kind of vaporized. Then they fell asleep with the porn still
playing on the TV with the sound off and with the guns and ammo on the floor.

Okay, as the months passed leading up to the election Bub’s inner circle of his
friends was starting to get paranoid and stuff. Bub and his friends decided to
spend the last weekend before the election at a motel in Ludington. This was
in order to get the lay of the land and decide what to do and what not to do.

On Friday afternoon Bub told Heidi that he would be going to Ludington
until Sunday night or maybe Monday.

Heidi did not ask for the details. Bub and his friends sometimes liked going off
on their own for a few days as was now the case during football season which
was also hunting season. Heidi did sense that something was amiss but she
kept her own counsel. Bub fucked her before he left and then Heidi was in
the house by herself. 

Okay, before she got married Heidi worked in an old people’s home in Muskegon.
She ran the bingo games of which there was a game in the morning and another
one in the afternoon. 

The old geezers were sort of addicted to bingo. Even though there were no prizes
for the bingo games there was excitement when the winners of a game stood up
and they got their round of applause. 

A few of the geezers were more than one hundred years old. The staff knew
who they were however their ages were kept secret from the other old geezers.
At the beginning of each month there was always a group birthday party for
whoever was born in that month but without the ages being revealed. 

Heidi’s mind drifted to the geezers as she found herself wandering back to the
garage where Bub worked on the snowmobiles late at night while Heidi sat there
and watched him as loud music played. Now in the garage Heidi noticed a sharp
contrast between the brightly colored snowmobiles and Heidi’s memories of the
geezers in Muskegon. 

The snowmobiles represented the youth and sex that Heidi and Bub now had. 
The geezers represented what was inevitably coming down the pike. It was
not only in terms of getting old but of everything in general, like how the election
was rigged against R.L. Greene. 

Okay, the weekend passed swiftly. Lying in bed and watching TV on Saturday
morning and Sunday morning Heidi observed R.L. Greene holding his rallies
all over the country. With the election coming up on Tuesday there were two
or three rallies per day where R.L. Greene was so energetic as he sang
and danced. How did he do it all?

He was fat but he was still full of vim and vigor. 

He referred to New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles as toilets.  

Sometimes he twerked!

He said “hell,” “ass,” “crap,” “shit,” “bullshit,” and when he said “fuck,” or
“fucking,” or “how in the fuck” the crowd cheered him. It brought a smile
to Heidi’s face as she lay there in bed. 

Okay, around four in the afternoon on Monday Heidi was puttering around and
she heard Bub’s truck pulling into the driveway. Then the front door opened
and Bub walked in. 

He looked the worse for wear so after kissing him hello Heidi got a can of beer
from the refrigerator and gave it to Bub. 

Bub sat down at the little table in the no-man’s-land between the kitchen and
the living room. 

He took a swig of beer and said, “Hunkpapa is a rat.”

“What!” 

“You heard me. He told the state police that we’ve got gun violence planned for
tomorrow. As soon as I heard that I got the hell out of there.”

Heidi hurriedly sat down across the little table from Bub. She took a drink from
his beer can and said, “How did you find out Hunkpapa is a rat?”

“He confessed it to us himself. His conscience got to him and he started blubbering.”

Furrowing her brow Heidi asked almost in a whisper, “Did you beat the shit out of him?”

“No. There wasn’t time for that. I got the hell out of there. Hunkpapa had went to the
state police barracks in Muskegon and had gave them everybody’s address and told
them we were planning on violence.”

After a moment of silence he added, “The cops are going to be here before long.
I promise you that.”

They stared at each other. They knew what they had to do. The time had come.
They went upstairs for one last fuck. 

Okay, after fucking they were laying there on the bed for a period of time like two
lumps on a log. No words were spoken. 

While they had been taking off their clothes they had each paused long enough to get
their guns and place them on the floor next to the bed where the guns now lay equally
quiescent as their owners.

During the coitus it occurred to Bub and it stuck in his craw that a man named
E. Talbot R. Gilmore would incredibly enough become the president of the
United States because the fix was in. Somehow that knowledge sexually
supercharged him along with the knowledge that they were going to blow their
heads off. He gave it everything he had in coitus and then he just lay there like
a whale washed up on the beach. 

Heidi just lay there too except there was a paradoxical aspect to it. While they
were fucking she had felt like it was all too much, he was too big, too powerful.
It was how she usually felt. But now that it was over she paradoxically felt that
the coitus had been too powerful but it had also not been powerful enough.
This too was how she usually felt. It had seemed too big and powerful but also
at the same time it had not been big and powerful enough. 

Okay, as the minutes passed Heidi’s body stayed perfectly still even though her
thoughts began racing. What if Bub had been a bear that tore her apart with its
teeth? Or what if she was the one who tore him apart with her teeth? What if they
ripped each other apart like maniacs and ate each other up? She wasn’t the least
bit repulsed by that, on the contrary in fact.

Eventually Heidi lolled her head over to look at Bub. 

She said, “Hun…”

He said, “Yeah, I know.”

Okay, they put a few clothes on as if it would matter to them when their bodies were
found by the state police after they were dead. No words were spoken. Heidi put
on a simple house dress. She wore no bra. Bub put on a black t-shirt and his sweat
pants that he wore while working on snowmobiles. He also held a sweatshirt in
his hands. 

They went and got their guns which Heidi got from her dresser drawer and Bub
got from his man cave. 

They sat on the floor. 

Bub said, “If you don’t mind I’ll go first.” 

Holding his gun in one hand he started to put the sweatshirt over his head
with the other hand. 

Heidi said, “What are you doing there?”

“Well, there’s going to be a mess so I’ll use the sweatshirt over my head.”

“But I want to see it. I want to see the inside of you,” she protested somewhat
seductively and with surprising vehemence. 

“Ha ha, suit yourself, babe,” said Bub. He eschewed the sweatshirt and racked a
round into the chamber of his .45. He put the barrel into his mouth and pulled
the trigger. There was a huge roar with blood and brains sprayed everywhere. 

Heidi put her index finger into some of the blood and tasted it. A lot of people
think that when a dog licks its master’s blood who has died that this is a sign
of insensitivity on the part of the dog but it may actually be the opposite, as
when Heidi tasted it affectionately.

Heidi even thought of tasting Bub’s brain but she hesitated and touched it
but did not taste it. 

With her .38 in her hand she got up and walked to the window of the bedroom.
She looked out into the night. 

Across Baseline Road a gigantic fruit processing plant was being constructed.
It was almost finished. Heidi got down on her knees and opened the window a bit.
As the cold November air rushed in she said fuck and took a couple of shots at
the fruit processing plant. She probably missed but it didn’t matter now. 

When she put the barrel of the gun into her mouth like Bub had done it occurred
to her that what if she shot herself but didn’t die? She would be a vegetable.
But anyway she pulled the trigger with her thumb.

Except R.L Greene won the election! 

From Dostoevsky in Heaven [by Mitch Sisskind]

Europe will find Christ with our Russia
Showing the way, which is her destiny --
But America? Ha. Recall how Svidrigailov 
Speaks of "America" as a euphemism
For what? For suicide! Ha. So I speak of
Trump as a double of Papa Karamazov
Who in his turn speaks of Grushenka as 
"My little chicken." Ha. Needless to say, 
Yes, yes, yes, there is also an aspect
Of Smerdyakov in Trump -- I know this --
And the bottom line (as you say!) is this:
America must not, cannot, and will not
Be redeemed. I'm just so terribly sorry.
Russia -- the third Rome! America? Ha.

"Ulysses" and The Gettysburg Address -- Great Poems of the World, with David Lehman and Mitch Sisskind

Ulysses
by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

It little profits that an idle king,

By this still hearth, among these barren crags,

Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole

Unequal laws unto a savage race,

That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.

I cannot rest from travel: I will drink

Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy'd

Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those

That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when

Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades

Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;

For always roaming with a hungry heart

Much have I seen and known; cities of men

And manners, climates, councils, governments,

Myself not least, but honour'd of them all;

And drunk delight of battle with my peers,

Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.

I am a part of all that I have met;

Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'

Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades

For ever and forever when I move.

How dull it is to pause, to make an end,

To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!

As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life

Were all too little, and of one to me

Little remains: but every hour is saved

From that eternal silence, something more,

A bringer of new things; and vile it were

For some three suns to store and hoard myself,

And this gray spirit yearning in desire

To follow knowledge like a sinking star,

Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

 

      This is my son, mine own Telemachus,

To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,—

Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil

This labour, by slow prudence to make mild

A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees

Subdue them to the useful and the good.

Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere

Of common duties, decent not to fail

In offices of tenderness, and pay

Meet adoration to my household gods,

When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.

 

      There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:

There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,

Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me—

That ever with a frolic welcome took

The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed

Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;

Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;

Death closes all: but something ere the end,

Some work of noble note, may yet be done,

Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.

The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:

The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep

Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,

'T is not too late to seek a newer world.

Push off, and sitting well in order smite

The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds

To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths

Of all the western stars, until I die.

It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:

It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,

And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.

Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'

We are not now that strength which in old days

Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;

One equal temper of heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

 

Address delivered by Abraham Lincoln at the dedication of the
Soldiers' National Cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
November 19, 1863

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth,
on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and
dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether
that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated,
can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war.
We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final
resting place for those who here gave their lives that that
nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we
should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not
consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave
men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated
it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world
will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it
can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living,
rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which
they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.
It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task
remaining before us—that from these honored dead we
take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave
the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve
that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation,
under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that
government of the people, by the people, for the people,
shall not perish from the earth.

Charles Bukowski -- Great Poems of the World, Episode 13, with David Lehman and Mitch Sisskind

 

 

 

from "Some comments on my last book of poesy"
     -- Charles Bukowski (1920-1994)

why do you drink?
I saw you at the racetrack but I didn't bother you.
I'd like to renew our relationship.
do you really stay up all night?
I can out-drink you.
you stole it from Sherwood Anderson.
did you ever meet Ezra?
I am alone and I think of you every night.
who the hell do you think you're fooling?
my tits aren't much but I've got great legs.
fuck you, man.
my wife hates you.
will you please read the enclosed poems and comment?
I am going to publish all those letters you wrote me.
you jack-off motherfucker, you're not fooling anybody.

And the Moon and the Stars and the World

Long walks at night --
that's what's good for the soul:
peeking into windows 
watching tired housewives
trying to fight off
their beer-maddened husbands.

Me Against the World

when I was a kid
one of the questions asked was,
would you rather eat a bucket of shit
or drink a bucket of piss?
I thought that was easy.
"that's easy," I said, "I'll take the
piss."
"maybe we'll make you do both,"
they told me.
I was the new kid in the
neighborhood.
"oh yeah," I said.
"yeah!" they said.
there were 4 of them.
"yeah," I said, "you and whose
army?"
"we won't need no army," the
biggest one said.
I slammed my fist into his
stomach.
then all 5 of us were down on
the ground fighting.
they got in each other's way
but there were still too many
of them.
I broke free and started
running.
"sissy! sissy!" they yelled.
"going home to mama?"
I kept running.
they were right.
I ran all the way to my house,
up the driveway and onto the
porch and into the
house
where my father was beating
my mother.
she was screaming.
things were broken on the floor.
I charged my father and started swinging.
I reached up but he was too tall,
all I could hit were his
legs.
then there was a flash of red and
purple and green
and I was on the floor.
"you little prick!" my father said,
"you stay out of this!"
"don't you hit my boy!" my mother
screamed.
but I felt good because my father
was no longer hitting my
mother.
to make sure, I got up and charged
him again, swinging.
there was another flash of colors
and I was on the floor
again.
when I got up again
my father was sitting in one chair
and my mother was sitting in
another chair
and they both just sat there
looking at me.
I walked down the hall and into
my bedroom and sat on the
bed.
I listened to make sure there
weren't any more sounds of
beating or screaming
out there.
there weren't.
then I didn't know what to
do.
it wasn't any good outside
and it wasn't any good
inside.
so I just sat there.
then I saw a spider making a web
in the window.
I found a match, walked over,
lit it and burned the spider.
then I felt better.
much better.


Poem in the Manner of Charles Bukowski
   -- David Lehman

You do what you want,
I’ll do what I want,
and we’ll see which one of us
gets to the twenty-dollar window
in time for the fourth race at Del Mar.

On the goddamn radio
that’s always playing
in my bitch’s kitchen,
I heard some East Coast big-shot author
say he needs to jerk off before he can write.
All is I can say is fuck that shit.

I hate poets who beg you
to like them because you feel sorry for them.
Do not feel sorry for me.
I won on Bitches’ Brew in the fourth
and went home and drank
 a fifth of bourbon
and got laid.

After Bukowski
   -- Mitch Sisskind

summer nights after work 
bill and I played tom and john
in basketball in the park by
ford city and then we'd go
to the old gripe and groan. 

bill and I were okay at
basketball while john 
was terrible but they 
usually won on account
of how tom was great. 

in fact in two rivers wisconsin
where tom went to high school
tom is in their high school sports
hall of fame in all three sports
in two rivers wisconsin.

well one night bill and I won
in basketball but the next
night they won again and
then we went over to
the old gripe and groan

and tom said i really wanted
to win tonight on account
of you won last night so |
i didn't have a drink
last night not even a

beer and i didn't 
fuck my wife
last night and not
this morning
I didn't
fuck her
neither one. 

Ms Moore & Ms Millay -- Great Poems of the World, Episode 12, with David Lehman and Mitch Sisskind

Ms Moore

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ms Millay 

 

Sonnet VI
by Edna St. Vincent Millay

  Euclid alone has looked on Beauty bare.
  Let all who prate of Beauty hold their peace,
  And lay them prone upon the earth and cease
  To ponder on themselves, the while they stare
  At nothing, intricately drawn nowhere
  In shapes of shifting lineage; let geese
  Gabble and hiss, but heroes seek release
  From dusty bondage into luminous air.

  O blinding hour, O holy, terrible day,
  When first the shaft into his vision shone
  Of light anatomized! Euclid alone
  Has looked on Beauty bare. Fortunate they
  Who, though once only and then but far away,
  Have heard her massive sandal set on stone.

Poetry 
by Marianne Moore

I too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond all this fiddle.
   Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one discovers that there is in
   it after all, a place for the genuine.
      Hands that can grasp, eyes
      that can dilate, hair that can rise
         if it must, these things are important not because a

high-sounding interpretation can be put upon them but because they are
   useful; when they become so derivative as to become unintelligible, the
   same thing may be said for all of us—that we
      do not admire what
      we cannot understand. The bat,
         holding on upside down or in quest of something to

eat, elephants pushing, a wild horse taking a roll, a tireless wolf under
   a tree, the immovable critic twinkling his skin like a horse that feels a flea, the base—
   ball fan, the statistician—case after case
      could be cited did
      one wish it; nor is it valid
         to discriminate against “business documents and

school-books”; all these phenomena are important. One must make a distinction
   however: when dragged into prominence by half poets, the result is not poetry,
   nor till the autocrats among us can be
     “literalists of
      the imagination”—above
         insolence and triviality and can present

for inspection, imaginary gardens with real toads in them, shall we have
   it. In the meantime, if you demand on the one hand, in defiance of their opinion—
   the raw material of poetry in
      all its rawness, and
      that which is on the other hand,
         genuine, then you are interested in poetry.

"Give him my best..." [by Mitch Sisskind ]

"Give him my best..."

Lumpy said to me you have to assume your house

Is bugged but I said to him Lumpy it's not bugged

Especially not in the rec room. So Spilatro came by

And we went into the rec room. I said how's Sam?

I hear he's frothing at the mouth and rolling around

On his back and stuff. The next time you see him

Give him my best, okay? That's all I said because

No need to do a whole oil painting for Spilatro.

Just give him my best was all and not a word more

Because when things have passed a certain point

I just say give the guy my best but we did go

Into the rec room because what if there's bugs.

And Lumpy? Why do we call him Lumpy?

His name is Lombardo so we call him Lumpy.

Laughter [by Mitch Sisskind]

In Genesis 18 when God told Sarah
She would have a baby she laughed
Since she was an old lady (90!) and 
When she denied she had laughed
God said, "No, honey, you did laugh,"
Because he wasn't angry about it;

However in Daniel 5:4 Belshazzar 
Mockingly laughed and a hand wrote

Mene mene tekel upharsin (?!?!?!)
On the wall and Belshazzar's loins
Were loosened (meaning what?)
Followed by the attack of King Darius
Who was sixty-two years of age.
(But we don't care how old he was!)

Wordsworth's "We Are Seven" & "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" -- Great Poems of the World, Episode 11, with David Lehman and Mitch Sisskind

A way with words.....

                                                                                                                      




























We Are Seven

———A simple Child,

That lightly draws its breath,

And feels its life in every limb,

What should it know of death?

 

I met a little cottage Girl:

She was eight years old, she said;

Her hair was thick with many a curl

That clustered round her head.

 

She had a rustic, woodland air,

And she was wildly clad:

Her eyes were fair, and very fair;

—Her beauty made me glad.

 

“Sisters and brothers, little Maid,

How many may you be?”

“How many? Seven in all,” she said,

And wondering looked at me.

 

“And where are they? I pray you tell.”

She answered, “Seven are we;

And two of us at Conway dwell,

And two are gone to sea.

 

“Two of us in the church-yard lie,

My sister and my brother;

And, in the church-yard cottage, I

Dwell near them with my mother.”

 

“You say that two at Conway dwell,

And two are gone to sea,

Yet ye are seven! I pray you tell,

Sweet Maid, how this may be.”

 

Then did the little Maid reply,

“Seven boys and girls are we;

Two of us in the church-yard lie,

Beneath the church-yard tree.”

 

“You run about, my little Maid,

Your limbs they are alive;

If two are in the church-yard laid,

Then ye are only five.”

 

“Their graves are green, they may be seen,”

The little Maid replied,

“Twelve steps or more from my mother’s door,

And they are side by side.

 

“My stockings there I often knit,

My kerchief there I hem;

And there upon the ground I sit,

And sing a song to them.

 

“And often after sun-set, Sir,

When it is light and fair,

I take my little porringer,

And eat my supper there.

 

“The first that died was sister Jane;

In bed she moaning lay,

Till God released her of her pain;

And then she went away.

 

“So in the church-yard she was laid;

And, when the grass was dry,

Together round her grave we played,

My brother John and I.

 

“And when the ground was white with snow,

And I could run and slide,

My brother John was forced to go,

And he lies by her side.”

 

“How many are you, then,” said I,

“If they two are in heaven?”

Quick was the little Maid’s reply,

“O Master! we are seven.”

 

“But they are dead; those two are dead!

Their spirits are in heaven!”

’Twas throwing words away; for still

The little Maid would have her will,

And said, “Nay, we are seven!”
(1798)


I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

 

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the milky way,

They stretched in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

 

The waves beside them danced; but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:

A poet could not but be gay,

In such a jocund company:

I gazed—and gazed—but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought:

 

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.

(1804)

Football Season Is Here [by Mitch Sisskind]

 

Possibly I am the only four-time contributor to BAP who was also the head coach of a high school football team, as I was for two years in the early '70s. Coaching the team was one of the most important experiences of my life, and also one of the riskiest. If we had not won more games than we lost I would have suffered a deep and permanent "narcissistic blow." It was a kind of atavistic experience without the sensitivities that were just starting to emerge fifty years ago. There was blood, sweat, and tears, and lots of laughs also. 

Walter Behrns, who's on the far left in the picture, was my assistant coach but as the athletic director of the school he was also my boss. However, Wally saw himself as a "baseball man" rather than a "football man" so I made all the decisions about our offense and defense, the starting lineups, the practice schedules, and the rest of it. Wally was like a Leopold Bloom for me when we drove around the Northwest Side scouting teams or visited the homes of Chicago policemen to recruit players. Unfortunately, like some of the young men in the picture, Wally Behrns is no longer with us. He was the most gifted funny person I've known. He beat Kenneth Koch by a field goal.

I've tried writing some sonnets about coaching....

Many math teachers also coach football.
As a math teacher and head coach of
My school's football team I try to combine
My love of math with my love of football
So kids learn something in the classroom 
That they can also use on the football field;

Paul Bryant conjectured about how if your 

Football ability is 75 percent and you are
Playing against a kid with 100 percent of
Football ability, what will happen if you 
Play at 110 percent of your ability and
The other kid plays at only 75 percent?
This is a good example of how to mix
Mathematics and football in the classroom.

 

On the sideline during a game a coach
Must not jollify when things are going well
Nor can gloom-pussing be allowed when 
Inevitable interceptions, injuries, fumbles,
And errant bounces of the football occur; 
In times of adversity a coach can mutter
"Fuck" under his breath or "fuck me" but
nothing more. Weeb Ewbank, Lombardi,
Some of the other greats carried tightly 

Rolled-up game programs to gesticulate
Like symphony orchestra conductors but 

One must have stature to wave a baton like
Toscanini or wave a program like Hank Stram
Who pioneered weightlifting with the Chiefs.

When we scouted a future opponent
We identified that team's best player
And in our weekly meetings on Mondays
We referred to him as the Big Stud or

Or sometimes a team had two Big Studs
One on offense and one on defense
Or there might even be no Big Studs 
In the true meaning of the term if 
The opposing team was very weak 
But we still referred to their best player 
As the Big Stud even though ironically 
Or with a comic superciliousness
That caused our players to smile
Through swollen ankles or stiff necks. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Fear of the Freight Elevator" [by Mitch Sisskind]

 

Well-founded fear of the freight elevator 
That once had inexplicably gone rogue

Boomeranging up and down between
The ground floor and the twelfth floor 
Without any cause that the agonized
Janitor could hope to understand until

Again inexplicably it suddenly stopped. 
But for how long would it be stopped?.

Thanked be fortune, the front elevator
Was ever predictable in the hands 
Of the septuagenarian elevator men:
Pete, Egnar, Joe, and a night shift man
   Whose proper name I didn't know;
   I just thought of him as Also Joe.

 

 

Byron's "Don Juan " and "So, We'll Go No More a-Roving" -- Great Poems of the World, Episode 10, with David Lehman and Mitch Sisskind

   


           George Gordon, Lord Byron, 1788–1824

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, we'll go no more a roving

So, we'll go no more a roving
    So late into the night,
Though the heart be still as loving,
    And the moon be still as bright.

For the sword outwears its sheath,
    And the soul wears out the breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe,
    And love itself have rest.

Though the night was made for loving,
    And the day returns too soon,
Yet we'll go no more a roving
    By the light of the moon.

from "Don Juan, Canto I"

I want a hero: an uncommon want,
    When every year and month sends forth a new one,
Till, after cloying the gazettes with cant,
    The age discovers he is not the true one;
Of such as these I should not care to vaunt,
    I’ll therefore take our ancient friend Don Juan—
We all have seen him, in the pantomime,
Sent to the devil somewhat ere his time.

Vernon, the butcher Cumberland, Wolfe, Hawke,
    Prince Ferdinand, Granby, Burgoyne, Keppel, Howe,
Evil and good, have had their tithe of talk,
    And fill’d their sign posts then, like Wellesley now;
Each in their turn like Banquo’s monarchs stalk,
    Followers of fame, ‘nine farrow’ of that sow:
France, too, had Buonaparte and Dumourier
Recorded in the Moniteur and Courier.

Barnave, Brissot, Condorcet, Mirabeau,
    Petion, Clootz, Danton, Marat, La Fayette,
Were French, and famous people, as we know:
    And there were others, scarce forgotten yet,
Joubert, Hoche, Marceau, Lannes, Desaix, Moreau,
    With many of the military set,
Exceedingly remarkable at times,
But not at all adapted to my rhymes.

Nelson was once Britannia’s god of war,
    And still should be so, but the tide is turn’d;
There’s no more to be said of Trafalgar,
    ’Tis with our hero quietly inurn’d;
Because the army ’s grown more popular,
    At which the naval people are concern’d;
Besides, the prince is all for the land-service,
Forgetting Duncan, Nelson, Howe, and Jervis.

Brave men were living before Agamemnon
    And since, exceeding valorous and sage,
A good deal like him too, though quite the same none;
    But then they shone not on the poet’s page,
And so have been forgotten:—I condemn none,
    But can’t find any in the present age
Fit for my poem (that is, for my new one);
So, as I said, I’ll take my friend Don Juan.

Most epic poets plunge ‘in medias res’
    (Horace makes this the heroic turnpike road),
And then your hero tells, whene’er you please,
    What went before—by way of episode,
While seated after dinner at his ease,
    Beside his mistress in some soft abode,
Palace, or garden, paradise, or cavern,
Which serves the happy couple for a tavern.

That is the usual method, but not mine—
    My way is to begin with the beginning;
The regularity of my design
    Forbids all wandering as the worst of sinning,
And therefore I shall open with a line
    (Although it cost me half an hour in spinning)
Narrating somewhat of Don Juan’s father,
And also of his mother, if you’d rather.

In Seville was he born, a pleasant city,
    Famous for oranges and women—he
Who has not seen it will be much to pity,
    So says the proverb—and I quite agree;
Of all the Spanish towns is none more pretty,
    Cadiz perhaps—but that you soon may see;
Don Juan’s parents lived beside the river,
A noble stream, and call’d the Guadalquivir.

His father’s name was Jose—Don, of course,—
    A true Hidalgo, free from every stain
Of Moor or Hebrew blood, he traced his source
    Through the most Gothic gentlemen of Spain;
A better cavalier ne’er mounted horse,
    Or, being mounted, e’er got down again,
Than Jose, who begot our hero, who
Begot—but that ’s to come—Well, to renew:

His mother was a learned lady, famed
    For every branch of every science known
In every Christian language ever named,
    With virtues equall’d by her wit alone,
She made the cleverest people quite ashamed,
    And even the good with inward envy groan,
Finding themselves so very much exceeded
In their own way by all the things that she did.

Her memory was a mine: she knew by heart
    All Calderon and greater part of Lope,
So that if any actor miss’d his part
    She could have served him for the prompter’s copy;
For her Feinagle’s were an useless art,
    And he himself obliged to shut up shop—he
Could never make a memory so fine as
That which adorn’d the brain of Donna Inez.

Her favourite science was the mathematical,
    Her noblest virtue was her magnanimity,
Her wit (she sometimes tried at wit) was Attic all,
    Her serious sayings darken’d to sublimity;
In short, in all things she was fairly what I call
    A prodigy—her morning dress was dimity,
Her evening silk, or, in the summer, muslin,
And other stuffs, with which I won’t stay puzzling.

abve: Byron in Albanian attire

"The blue light in the guest bathroom" [by Mitch Sisskind]

In the guest bathroom a faux-marble counter 
Surrounds the sink and a plastic toilet seat
Also has the appearance of black marble.

Each closet in the apartment has a switch 
To ignite a bulb as the closet door opens but
In the guest bathroom the opposite is true.

When the door of the guest bathroom closes
A beguiling blue light above the door reflects
Off glass-covered leopard skin-print wallpaper.

Bathrooms exist as well in the guest bedroom,
The child's bedroom, and adjacent the walk-in
Closet of the so-called master bedroom where

A small safe in the walk-in closet might attract
Someone's brief notice on the way to the
master bedroom’s bathroom while away in the

Long hall a cedar closet becomes shrouded 
In darkness as the door closes to create
An unexpected seclusion space but neither 

The small safe by the master bedroom
Nor the halcyon confine of the cedar closet 
Beguile like the blue light in the guest bathroom.

Jack Kerouac, Columbia's football star [by Mitch Sisskind]

I have enjoyed reading on this site about Jack's outstanding work in Mark Van Doren's class at Columbia. However, while it may be true that Jack quit the football team after receiving an 'A' in the class, this is not actually why he quit the team. In 'Vanity of Dulouz,' one of his last books -- it may even have been posthumous -- Jack makes it very clear that he left the team out of frustration at the Columbia Coach. The Coach's real name was Lou Little, and I believe in the book Jack refers to him as Lou Libble. Here he is...

As the book describes it, Little (or Libble) had a tremendous fixation on a reverse play called KF-79. He had won a game with it thousands of years ago, when he was so happy he fell off his dinosaur. Now he kept insisting that Kerouac practice this play over and over, which pissed Jack off. Plus, Jack had broken his leg sometime earlier and Lou had moved him down in the depth chart, very unfairly in Jack's opinion. So Jack left the team. In fact, not long afterward he left Columbia altogether.

Jack was a good player in high school in Massachusetts, and I believe he did a postgraduate year at Horace Mann School where he also played. He was probably the best football playing writer ever, certainly the best since U. of Penn All-American T. Truxton Hare in the early years of the 20th century. 'Vanity of Dulouz' is one of the best books ever about football, although only the opening section actually deals with the game. Jack had the ability (like Homer) to magnify a small incident like a football game into something on the scale of the Normandy invasion. 'Dulouz' is really good, and you feel like you're right next to Jack on the field, or on your barstool.

However, the all time best book on football -- in fact, it's in a completely different league than any other football book -- is Don Delillo's End Zone. Which is wonderful, because unless I am mistaken Delilo did not play the game past the high school level and I'm not sure he even played high school ball. In this sense he's a kind of Stephen Crane, who wrote convincingly about combat without having taken part in it. Well, Tolstoy said if you've seen a street fight you can write about a war. If you've seen Mr. Smee, you can write about Captain Hook. If you've seen a dachshund, you can write about a Shar Pei. Trust me!

from the archive; July 27, 2008

Yeats' "Vacillation" and "Among School Children" -- Great Poems of the World, Episode 9, with David Lehman and Mitch Sisskind

The Great Man with wife Georgie, daughter Ann, and son William

Vacillation

I

Between extremities
Man runs his course;
A brand, or flaming breath.
Comes to destroy
All those antinomies
Of day and night;
The body calls it death,
The heart remorse.
But if these be right
What is joy?

II

A tree there is that from its topmost bough
Is half all glittering flame and half all green
Abounding foliage moistened with the dew;
And half is half and yet is all the scene;
And half and half consume what they renew,
And he that Attis’ image hangs between
That staring fury and the blind lush leaf
May know not what he knows, but knows not grief

III

Get all the gold and silver that you can,
Satisfy ambition, animate
The trivial days and ram them with the sun,
And yet upon these maxims meditate:
All women dote upon an idle man
Although their children need a rich estate;
No man has ever lived that had enough
Of children’s gratitude or woman’s love.

No longer in Lethean foliage caught
Begin the preparation for your death
And from the fortieth winter by that thought
Test every work of intellect or faith,
And everything that your own hands have wrought
And call those works extravagance of breath
That are not suited for such men as come
proud, open-eyed and laughing to the tomb.

IV

My fiftieth year had come and gone,
I sat, a solitary man,
In a crowded London shop,
An open book and empty cup
On the marble table-top.
While on the shop and street I gazed
My body of a sudden blazed;
And twenty minutes more or less
It seemed, so great my happiness,
That I was blessed and could bless.

V

Although the summer Sunlight gild
Cloudy leafage of the sky,
Or wintry moonlight sink the field
In storm-scattered intricacy,
I cannot look thereon,
Responsibility so weighs me down.

Things said or done long years ago,
Or things I did not do or say
But thought that I might say or do,
Weigh me down, and not a day
But something is recalled,
My conscience or my vanity appalled.

VI

A rivery field spread out below,
An odour of the new-mown hay
In his nostrils, the great lord of Chou
Cried, casting off the mountain snow,
‘Let all things pass away.’

Wheels by milk-white asses drawn
Where Babylon or Nineveh
Rose; some conquer drew rein
And cried to battle-weary men,
‘Let all things pass away.’

From man’s blood-sodden heart are sprung
Those branches of the night and day
Where the gaudy moon is hung.
What’s the meaning of all song?
‘Let all things pass away.’

VII

The Soul. Seek out reality, leave things that seem.
The Heart. What, be a singer born and lack a theme?
The Soul. Isaiah’s coal, what more can man desire?
The Heart. Struck dumb in the simplicity of fire!
The Soul. Look on that fire, salvation walks within.
The Heart. What theme had Homer but original sin?

VIII

Must we part, Von Hugel, though much alike, for we
Accept the miracles of the saints and honour sanctity?
The body of Saint Teresa lies undecayed in tomb,
Bathed in miraculous oil, sweet odours from it come,
Healing from its lettered slab. Those self-same hands perchance
Eternalised the body of a modern saint that once
Had scooped out pharaoh’s mummy. I – though heart might find relief
Did I become a Christian man and choose for my belief
What seems most welcome in the tomb – play a pre-destined part.
Homer is my example and his unchristened heart.
The lion and the honeycomb, what has Scripture said?
So get you gone, Von Hugel, though with blessings on your head.

Among School Children

I

I walk through the long schoolroom questioning;

A kind old nun in a white hood replies;

The children learn to cipher and to sing,

To study reading-books and history,

To cut and sew, be neat in everything

In the best modern way—the children's eyes

In momentary wonder stare upon

A sixty-year-old smiling public man.

 

II

I dream of a Ledaean body, bent

Above a sinking fire, a tale that she

Told of a harsh reproof, or trivial event

That changed some childish day to tragedy—

Told, and it seemed that our two natures blent

Into a sphere from youthful sympathy,

Or else, to alter Plato's parable,

Into the yolk and white of the one shell.

 

III

And thinking of that fit of grief or rage

I look upon one child or t'other there

And wonder if she stood so at that age—

For even daughters of the swan can share

Something of every paddler's heritage—

And had that colour upon cheek or hair,

And thereupon my heart is driven wild:

She stands before me as a living child.

 

IV

Her present image floats into the mind—

Did Quattrocento finger fashion it

Hollow of cheek as though it drank the wind

And took a mess of shadows for its meat?

And I though never of Ledaean kind

Had pretty plumage once—enough of that,

Better to smile on all that smile, and show

There is a comfortable kind of old scarecrow.

 

V

What youthful mother, a shape upon her lap

Honey of generation had betrayed,

And that must sleep, shriek, struggle to escape

As recollection or the drug decide,

Would think her son, did she but see that shape

With sixty or more winters on its head,

A compensation for the pang of his birth,

Or the uncertainty of his setting forth?

 

VI

Plato thought nature but a spume that plays

Upon a ghostly paradigm of things;

Solider Aristotle played the taws

Upon the bottom of a king of kings;

World-famous golden-thighed Pythagoras

Fingered upon a fiddle-stick or strings

What a star sang and careless Muses heard:

Old clothes upon old sticks to scare a bird.

 

VII

Both nuns and mothers worship images,

But those the candles light are not as those

That animate a mother's reveries,

But keep a marble or a bronze repose.

And yet they too break hearts—O Presences

That passion, piety or affection knows,

And that all heavenly glory symbolise—

O self-born mockers of man's enterprise;

 

VIII

Labour is blossoming or dancing where

The body is not bruised to pleasure soul,

Nor beauty born out of its own despair,

Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil.

O chestnut tree, great rooted blossomer,

Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?

O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,

How can we know the dancer from the dance?

"To His Mistress Going to Bed" & "To His Coy Mistress" -- Great Poems of the World, Episode 8, with David Lehman and Mitch Sisskind

To His Mistress Going to Bed
by John Donne (1633)

 

To His Mistress Going to Bed
John Donne

Come, Madam, come, all rest my powers defy,
Until I labour, I in labour lie.
The foe oft-times having the foe in sight,
Is tir’d with standing though he never fight.
Off with that girdle, like heaven’s Zone glistering,
But a far fairer world encompassing.
Unpin that spangled breastplate which you wear,
That th’eyes of busy fools may be stopped there.
Unlace yourself, for that harmonious chime,
Tells me from you, that now it is bed time.
Off with that happy busk, which I envy,
That still can be, and still can stand so nigh.
Your gown going off, such beauteous state reveals,
As when from flowery meads th’hill’s shadow steals.
Off with that wiry Coronet and shew
The hairy Diadem which on you doth grow:
Now off with those shoes, and then safely tread
In this love’s hallow’d temple, this soft bed.
In such white robes, heaven’s Angels used to be
Received by men; Thou Angel bringst with thee
A heaven like Mahomet’s Paradise; and though
Ill spirits walk in white, we easily know,
By this these Angels from an evil sprite,
Those set our hairs, but these our flesh upright.

Licence my roving hands, and let them go,
Before, behind, between, above, below.
O my America! my new-found-land,
My kingdom, safeliest when with one man mann’d,
My Mine of precious stones, My Empirie,
How blest am I in this discovering thee!
To enter in these bonds, is to be free;
Then where my hand is set, my seal shall be.

Full nakedness! All joys are due to thee,
As souls unbodied, bodies uncloth’d must be,
To taste whole joys. Gems which you women use
Are like Atlanta’s balls, cast in men’s views,
That when a fool’s eye lighteth on a Gem,
His earthly soul may covet theirs, not them.
Like pictures, or like books’ gay coverings made
For lay-men, are all women thus array’d;
Themselves are mystic books, which only we
(Whom their imputed grace will dignify)
Must see reveal’d. Then since that I may know;
As liberally, as to a Midwife, shew
Thy self: cast all, yea, this white linen hence,
There is no penance due to innocence.

To teach thee, I am naked first; why then
What needst thou have more covering than a man.

To His Coy Mistress
by Andrew Marvell (1681)

 

To His Coy Mistress
Andrew Marvell

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 wingèd 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 amorous 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.

Click here for a further analysis of the two poems.  

Nora Ephron [by Mitch Sissakind]

Some time ago -- oh, ten years at least must now have passed -- I had a conversation with Ron Padgett that remains clear in memory. I believe there are three reasons for this clarity. First, it was the only conversation I've ever had with Ron Padgett. Second, I had been preparing for the conversation over many years, hoping that I would someday have a chance to speak with Ron. Third, the conversation was everything I'd hoped for, although it was essentially finished after the first minute or so. This was because the start of the conversation was so powerful, thought provoking, and fulfilling that the rest didn't matter. It was like a baseball game with such a spectacular home run on the first pitch that no one pays attention to the rest of the game -- and, as John Ashbery wrote, "this is only one example."

I said to Ron Padgett, "Reading your own work, and also some of your collaborations with Ted Berrigan in Bean Spasms, I felt that this was as funny as anything else I'd seen. As funny as Mark Twain in "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses," and much funnier than most professional funny men. Yet many professional funny men are making a really good living from not actually being that funny, or not being funny at all. So my question is, did you ever think of somehow taking a commercial route with your funniness -- maybe into film or television, or by writing jokes for famous comedians, as Woody Allen did?"

The reply from Ron Padgett was instantaneous and emphatic: "Hell no!"

Well, I knew where Ron was coming from, and felt like I was from the same place. Yes, we were brothers in our allegiances and our renunciations. We were both students of Kenneth Koch, who could have been Jerry Lewis but who chose to be himself. Hooray and boo-hoo, as Koch himself liked to say. (Or just hooray, if you prefer.) Let's keep all this in the back of our minds as we consider Nora Ephron -- her life, death, and the memorial service that took place this week. She was a very funny lady.

from the archive; first posted some sunny day

"Auguries of Innocence" by William Blake -- Great Poems of the World, Episode 7, with David Lehman and Mitch Sisskind

 

Auguries of Innocence

William Blake

To see a World in a Grain of Sand

And a Heaven in a Wild Flower 

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand 

And Eternity in an hour

A Robin Red breast in a Cage

Puts all Heaven in a Rage 

A Dove house filld with Doves & Pigeons

Shudders Hell thr' all its regions 

A dog starvd at his Masters Gate

Predicts the ruin of the State 

A Horse misusd upon the Road

Calls to Heaven for Human blood 

Each outcry of the hunted Hare

A fibre from the Brain does tear 

A Skylark wounded in the wing 

A Cherubim does cease to sing 

The Game Cock clipd & armd for fight

Does the Rising Sun affright 

Every Wolfs & Lions howl

Raises from Hell a Human Soul 

The wild deer, wandring here & there 

Keeps the Human Soul from Care 

The Lamb misusd breeds Public Strife

And yet forgives the Butchers knife 

The Bat that flits at close of Eve

Has left the Brain that wont Believe

The Owl that calls upon the Night

Speaks the Unbelievers fright

He who shall hurt the little Wren

Shall never be belovd by Men 

He who the Ox to wrath has movd

Shall never be by Woman lovd

The wanton Boy that kills the Fly

Shall feel the Spiders enmity 

He who torments the Chafers Sprite

Weaves a Bower in endless Night 

The Catterpiller on the Leaf

Repeats to thee thy Mothers grief 

Kill not the Moth nor Butterfly 

For the Last Judgment draweth nigh 

He who shall train the Horse to War

Shall never pass the Polar Bar 

The Beggars Dog & Widows Cat 

Feed them & thou wilt grow fat 

The Gnat that sings his Summers Song

Poison gets from Slanders tongue 

The poison of the Snake & Newt

Is the sweat of Envys Foot 

The poison of the Honey Bee

Is the Artists Jealousy

The Princes Robes & Beggars Rags

Are Toadstools on the Misers Bags 

A Truth thats told with bad intent

Beats all the Lies you can invent 

It is right it should be so 

Man was made for Joy & Woe 

And when this we rightly know 

Thro the World we safely go 

Joy & Woe are woven fine 

A Clothing for the soul divine 

Under every grief & pine

Runs a joy with silken twine 

The Babe is more than swadling Bands

Throughout all these Human Lands

Tools were made & Born were hands 

Every Farmer Understands

Every Tear from Every Eye

Becomes a Babe in Eternity 

This is caught by Females bright

And returnd to its own delight 

The Bleat the Bark Bellow & Roar 

Are Waves that Beat on Heavens Shore 

The Babe that weeps the Rod beneath

Writes Revenge in realms of Death 

The Beggars Rags fluttering in Air

Does to Rags the Heavens tear 

The Soldier armd with Sword & Gun 

Palsied strikes the Summers Sun

The poor Mans Farthing is worth more

Than all the Gold on Africs Shore

One Mite wrung from the Labrers hands

Shall buy & sell the Misers Lands 

Or if protected from on high 

Does that whole Nation sell & buy 

He who mocks the Infants Faith

Shall be mockd in Age & Death 

He who shall teach the Child to Doubt

The rotting Grave shall neer get out 

He who respects the Infants faith

Triumphs over Hell & Death 

The Childs Toys & the Old Mans Reasons

Are the Fruits of the Two seasons 

The Questioner who sits so sly 

Shall never know how to Reply 

He who replies to words of Doubt

Doth put the Light of Knowledge out 

The Strongest Poison ever known

Came from Caesars Laurel Crown 

Nought can Deform the Human Race

Like to the Armours iron brace 

When Gold & Gems adorn the Plow

To peaceful Arts shall Envy Bow 

A Riddle or the Crickets Cry

Is to Doubt a fit Reply 

The Emmets Inch & Eagles Mile

Make Lame Philosophy to smile 

He who Doubts from what he sees

Will neer Believe do what you Please 

If the Sun & Moon should Doubt 

Theyd immediately Go out 

To be in a Passion you Good may Do 

But no Good if a Passion is in you 

The Whore & Gambler by the State

Licencd build that Nations Fate 

The Harlots cry from Street to Street 

Shall weave Old Englands winding Sheet 

The Winners Shout the Losers Curse 

Dance before dead Englands Hearse 

Every Night & every Morn

Some to Misery are Born 

Every Morn and every Night

Some are Born to sweet delight 

Some are Born to sweet delight 

Some are Born to Endless Night 

We are led to Believe a Lie

When we see not Thro the Eye

Which was Born in a Night to perish in a Night 

When the Soul Slept in Beams of Light 

God Appears & God is Light

To those poor Souls who dwell in Night 

But does a Human Form Display

To those who Dwell in Realms of day
(1803)

 

"How It Will Be" [by Mitch Sisskind]

Sometimes you're tired maybe because you
Didn't sleep last night or you drank too much
So even if you did sleep it wasn't a real sleep 
Yet somehow you make it through the day 
Until around 4 or 5 pm you lie down and sleep
Till maybe midnight when you briefly wake up 
To check the time and then go back to sleep
Clear until morning when you at last awaken
To the sun shining and the birds chirping 
And any dog or cat you had in your life 

Is there jumping up and down with joy and 
Some even peeing with wild excitement and 

Because they can all talk now they're saying 

"We've been waiting for you!" That's how it will be.

"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" -- Great Poems of the World, Episode 6, with David Lehman and Mitch Sisskind

So eat a peach already! What the hell!

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
by T.S. Eliot

S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma percioche giammai di questo fondo
Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero,
Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo.

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 window-panes,

The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes,

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 window-panes;

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 which a minute will reverse.

 

For I have known them all 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 along a table, or wrap about a shawl.

               And 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.

 

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,

And 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 worth while,

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 worth while,

After the sunsets and the dooryards and the 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 worth while

If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,

And turning toward 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 that 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 with seaweed red and brown

Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

"My Life had stood - a loaded gun" -- Great Poems of the World, Episode 5, with David Lehman and Mitch Sisskind

                                                                                                    Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)


                                                                                          Definitely - No


                                                                                              Probably - Yes


                                                                                        What do You - Think?

My Life had stood - a Loaded Gun

My Life had stood - a Loaded Gun -

In Corners - till a Day

The Owner passed - identified -

And carried Me away -

 

And now We roam in Sovreign Woods -

And now We hunt the Doe -

And every time I speak for Him

The Mountains straight reply -

 

And do I smile, such cordial light

Opon the Valley glow -

It is as a Vesuvian face

Had let it’s pleasure through -

 

And when at Night - Our good Day done -

I guard My Master’s Head -

’Tis better than the Eider Duck’s

Deep Pillow - to have shared -

 

To foe of His - I’m deadly foe -

None stir the second time -

On whom I lay a Yellow Eye -

Or an emphatic Thumb -

 

Though I than He - may longer live

He longer must - than I -

For I have but the power to kill,

Without - the power to die -