As the dead prey upon us, they are the dead in ourselves, awake, my sleeping ones, I cry out to you, disentangle the nets of being!
I pushed my car, it had been sitting so long unused. I thought the tires looked as though they only needed air. But suddenly the huge underbody was above me, and the rear tires were masses of rubber and thread variously clinging together
You are a friend then, as I make it out, Of our man Shakespeare, who alone of us Will put an ass's head in Fairyland As he would add a shilling to more shillings, All most harmonious, — and out of his Miraculous inviolable increase Fills Ilion, Rome, or any town you like Of olden time with timeless Englishmen; And I must wonder what you think of him — All you down there where your small Avon flows By Stratford, and where you're an Alderman. Some, for a guess, would have him riding back To be a farrier there, or say a dyer; Or maybe one of your adept surveyors; Or like enough the wizard of all tanners.
"As certain also of your own poets have said"— (Acts 17.28) Cleon the poet (from the sprinkled isles, Lily on lily, that o'erlace the sea And laugh their pride when the light wave lisps "Greece")— To Protus in his Tyranny: much health!
Ave Faustina Imperatrix, morituri te salutant. Lean back, and get some minutes' peace; Let your head lean Back to the shoulder with its fleece Of locks, Faustine.
Even as the sun with purple-colour’d face
Had ta’en his last leave of the weeping morn,
Rose-cheek’d Adonis tried him to the chase;
Hunting he lov’d, but love he laugh’d to scorn;
Sick-thoughted Venus makes amain unto him,
And like a bold-fac’d suitor ‘gins to woo him.
Nondum amabam, et amare amabam, quaerebam quid amarem, amans amare.— Confess. St. August. Earth, ocean, air, belovèd brotherhood! If our great Mother has imbued my soul With aught of natural piety to feel Your love, and recompense the boon with mine;
Washing Kai in the sauna, The kerosene lantern set on a box outside the ground-level window, Lights up the edge of the iron stove and the washtub down on the slab Steaming air and crackle of waterdrops brushed by on the pile of rocks on top He stands in warm water
Come live with me, and be my love, And we will some new pleasures prove Of golden sands, and crystal brooks, With silken lines, and silver hooks.
There will the river whispering run Warm'd by thy eyes, more than the sun; And there the 'enamour'd fish will stay, Begging themselves they may betray.
When thou wilt swim in that live bath, Each fish, which every channel hath, Will amorously to thee swim, Gladder to catch thee, than thou him.
The forward youth that would appear Must now forsake his Muses dear, Nor in the shadows sing His numbers languishing. ’Tis time to leave the books in dust, And oil th’ unused armour’s rust, Removing from the wall The corslet of the hall.
Those four black girls blown up in that Alabama church remind me of five hundred middle passage blacks, in a net, under water in Charleston harbor so redcoats wouldn't find them. Can't find what you can't see
No but come closer. Come a little Closer. Let the wall-eyed hornyhanded Panhandler hit you for a dime Sir and shiver. Snow like this Drives its pelting shadows over Bremen, Over sad Louvain and the eastern Marshes, the black wold. It sighs Into the cold sea of the north,
Thou art not, Penshurst, built to envious show, Of touch or marble; nor canst boast a row Of polished pillars, or a roof of gold; Thou hast no lantern, whereof tales are told, Or stair, or courts; but stand’st an ancient pile, And, these grudged at, art reverenced the while. Thou joy’st in better marks, of soil, of air, Of wood, of water; therein thou art fair.
Tho’ lack of laurels and of wreaths not one Prove you our lives abortive, shall we yet Vaunt us our single aim, our hearts full set To win the guerdon which is never won. Witness, a purpose never is undone. And tho’ fate drain our seas of violet To gather round our lives her wide-hung net, Memories of hopes that are not shall atone.
Not in the world of light alone, Where God has built his blazing throne, Nor yet alone in earth below, With belted seas that come and go, And endless isles of sunlit green, Is all thy Maker’s glory seen: Look in upon thy wondrous frame,— Eternal wisdom still the same!
The students, lost in raucousness, caught as by the elder Breughel’s eye, we sit in the college store over sandwiches and coffee, wondering. She answers eagerly: the place was fine; sometimes the winds grew very cold, the snows so deep and wide she lost
I like to cross these borders. They take place between the dead & dead. I make my mind up to be honest only I fail to meet their expectations. I will not save the world.
You sit in a chair, touched by nothing, feeling the old self become the older self, imagining only the patience of water, the boredom of stone. You think that silence is the extra page, you think that nothing is good or bad, not even the darkness that fills the house while you sit watching it happen. You’ve seen it happen before. Your friends move past the window, their faces soiled with regret.
On the day the world ends A bee circles a clover, A fisherman mends a glimmering net. Happy porpoises jump in the sea, By the rainspout young sparrows are playing And the snake is gold-skinned as it should always be.
On the day the world ends Women walk through the fields under their umbrellas,
Then all the nations of birds lifted together the huge net of the shadows of this earth in multitudinous dialects, twittering tongues, stitching and crossing it. They lifted up the shadows of long pines down trackless slopes, the shadows of glass-faced towers down evening streets, the shadow of a frail plant on a city sill— the net rising soundless as night, the birds' cries soundless, until
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