1 I sing the body electric, The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them, They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them, And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the soul.
Was it doubted that those who corrupt their own bodies conceal themselves? And if those who defile the living are as bad as they who defile the dead? And if the body does not do fully as much as the soul? And if the body were not the soul, what is the soul?
2 The love of the body of man or woman balks account, the body itself balks account, That of the male is perfect, and that of the female is perfect.
Such pejorative deformities of sound Without meaningful speech or musical equipoise, Annoyances none but hoi polloi enjoys, Through our winding whispering galleries resound Unwelcome, & like a tedious siege surround Us with that ubiquitous nuisance, noise, Which may take the shape of inflated reputation, Able neither to stun, astonish nor astound Those whom obscene publicity annoys, Who prefer the decent obscurity of publication.
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Regardless of the weird world’s disregard, These works may be devoted to the wastebasket
For the person who obtained my debit card number and spent $11,000 in five days My pale stepdaughter, just off the school bus, Scowled, "Well, that's the last time I say my name's Snodgrass!" Just so, may that anonymous Mexican male who prodigally claims
I went over the other day to pick up my daughter. her mother came out with workman’s overalls on. I gave her the child support money and she laid a sheaf of poems on me by one Manfred Anderson. I read them.
Dear Doctor, I have read your play, Which is a good one in its way, Purges the eyes, and moves the bowels, And drenches handkerchiefs like towels With tears that, in a flux of grief, Afford hysterical relief To shatter'd nerves and quicken'd pulses, Which your catastrophe convulses.
I. Runs falls rises stumbles on from darkness into darkness and the darkness thicketed with shapes of terror and the hunters pursuing and the hounds pursuing and the night cold and the night long and the river to cross and the jack-muh-lanterns beckoning beckoning and blackness ahead and when shall I reach that somewhere morning and keep on going and never turn back and keep on going
The sidewalks were long where I grew up. They were as veined as the backs Of my Grandma’s hands. We knew every inch of pavement; We jumped the cracks Chanting rhymes that broke evil spirits, Played tag at sunset
I saw the hand of Rasputin cast in bronze and used as an oversized paperweight on someone’s desk. The authentic hand. Smooth as Italian leather. It was molded from plaster before he was killed. Bought at an auction in Europe. She was a collector. She knew the value of everything.
When I died, the circulating library Which I built up for Spoon River, And managed for the good of inquiring minds, Was sold at auction on the public square, As if to destroy the last vestige Of my memory and influence. For those of you who could not see the virtue Of knowing Volney's "Ruins" as well as Butler's "Analogy" And "Faust" as well as "Evangeline," Were really the power in the village, And often you asked me, "What is the use of knowing the evil in the world?" I am out of your way now, Spoon River, Choose your own good and call it good. For I could never make you see
What is the head a. Ash What are the eyes a. The wells have fallen in and have Inhabitants What are the feet a. Thumbs left after the auction No what are the feet
"You know Orion always comes up sideways. Throwing a leg up over our fence of mountains, And rising on his hands, he looks in on me Busy outdoors by lantern-light with something I should have done by daylight, and indeed, After the ground is frozen, I should have done Before it froze, and a gust flings a handful Of waste leaves at my smoky lantern chimney
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