Happy Birthday Kenneth Koch/Feb 27 We went to all those places where they restore sadness and joy and call it art. We were piloted by Auden who became Unbearably acrimonious when we dropped off Senghor into the steamy skies of his beloved West Africa. The termites and ants
—Was it for this That one, the fairest of all Rivers, lov'd To blend his murmurs with my Nurse's song, And from his alder shades and rocky falls, And from his fords and shallows, sent a voice That flow'd along my dreams? For this, didst Thou, O Derwent! travelling over the green Plains Near my 'sweet Birthplace', didst thou, beauteous Stream
When he would not return to fine garments and good food, to his houses and his people, Loingseachan told him, “Your father is dead.” “I’m sorry to hear it,” he said. “Your mother is dead,” said the lad. “All pity for me has gone out of the world.” “Your sister, too, is dead.” “The mild sun rests on every ditch,” he said; “a sister loves even though not loved.” “Suibhne, your daughter is dead.” “And an only daughter is the needle of the heart.” “And Suibhne, your little boy, who used to call you “Daddy”—he is dead.” “Aye,” said Suibhne, “that’s the drop that brings a man to the ground.” He fell out of the yew tree; Loingseachan closed his arms around him and placed him in manacles.—AFTER THE MIDDLE-IRISH ROMANCE, THE MADNESS OF SUIBHNE
NO more of talk where God or Angel Guest With Man, as with his Friend, familiar us'd To sit indulgent, and with him partake Rural repast, permitting him the while Venial discourse unblam'd: I now must change Those Notes to Tragic; foul distrust, and breach Disloyal on the part of Man, revolt, And disobedience: On the part of Heav'n
On a road through the mountains with a friend many years ago I came to a curve on a slope where a clear stream flowed down flashing across dark rocks through its own echoes that could neither be caught nor forgotten it was the turning of autumn and already the mornings were cold with ragged clouds in the hollows long after sunrise but the pasture sagging like a roof the glassy water and flickering yellow leaves
Thus far, O Friend! have we, though leaving much Unvisited, endeavour'd to retrace My life through its first years, and measured back The way I travell'd when I first began To love the woods and fields; the passion yet Was in its birth, sustain'd, as might befal, By nourishment that came unsought, for still, From week to week, from month to month, we liv'd A round of tumult: duly were our games Prolong'd in summer till the day-light fail'd; No chair remain'd before the doors, the bench And threshold steps were empty; fast asleep The Labourer, and the old Man who had sate, A later lingerer, yet the revelry Continued, and the loud uproar: at last,
From the beginning, the egg cradled in pebbles, The drive thick with fledglings, to the known last Riot of the senses, is only a short pass. Earth to be forked over is more patient, Bird hungers more, flower dies sooner.
But if not grasped grows quickly, silently. We are restless, not remembering much. The pain is slow, original as laughter,
The bugle sounds the measured call to prayers, The band starts bravely with a clarion hymn, From every side, singly, in groups, in pairs, Each to his kind of service comes to worship Him.
Our faces washed, our hearts in the right place, We kneel or stand or listen from our tents; Half-naked natives with their kind of grace Move down the road with balanced staffs like mendicants.
On the warm Sunday afternoons And every evening in the Spring and Summer When the night hurries the late home-corner And the air grows softer, and scraps of tunes Float from the open windows and jar Against the voices of children and the hum of a car; When the city noises commingle and melt With a restless something half-seen, half-felt—
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.
I walk the purple carpet into your eye carrying the silver butter server but a truck rumbles by, leaving its black tire prints on my foot and old images the sound of banging screen doors on hot afternoons and a fly buzzing over the Kool-Aid spilled on the sink flicker, as reflections on the metal surface.
The plane tilts in to Nashville, coming over the green lights like a toy train skipping past the signals on a track. The city is livid with lights, as if the weight of all the people shooting down her arteries had inflamed them.
I When Bishop Berkeley said "there was no matter," And proved it—'twas no matter what he said: They say his system 'tis in vain to batter, Too subtle for the airiest human head; And yet who can believe it! I would shatter Gladly all matters down to stone or lead, Or adamant, to find the World a spirit, And wear my head, denying that I wear it.
II What a sublime discovery 'twas to make the Universe universal egotism, That all's ideal—all ourselves: I'll stake the World (be it what you will) that that's no schism.
of course, I may die in the next ten minutes and I’m ready for that but what I’m really worried about is that my editor-publisher might retire even though he is ten years younger than I. it was just 25 years ago (I was at that ripe old age of 45)
Complacencies of the peignoir, and late Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair, And the green freedom of a cockatoo Upon a rug mingle to dissipate The holy hush of ancient sacrifice. She dreams a little, and she feels the dark
Three years ago, in the afternoons, I used to sit back here and try To answer the simple arithmetic of my life, But never could figure it— This object and that object Never contained the landscape nor all of its implications, This tree and that shrub
Retired ballerinas on winter afternoons walking their dogs in Central Park West (or their cats on leashes— the cats themselves old highwire artists) The ballerinas leap and pirouette through Columbus Circle
Dreamer of purified fury and fabulous habit, your eyes of deserted white afternoons target, stiffen, riot with unicorn candor so I swallow your body like meanings or whisky or as you swallow me.
Break rhythm here: your kiss is my justice: look then now how orange blooms of jubilation unfold in satisfied air! This sex is more than sex, under the will of the God of sex, so I softly invoke transformation of your rueful image of haven
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