The Minister of culture goes home after a grueling day at the office. He lies on his bed and tries to think of nothing, but nothing hap-pens or, more precisely, does not happen. Nothing is elsewhere doing what nothing does, which is to expand the dark. But the minister is patient, and slowly things slip away—the walls of his house, the park across the street, his friends in the next town. He believes that nothing has finally come to him and, in its absent way, is saying, “Darling, you know how much I have always wanted to please you, and now I have come. And what is more, I have come to stay.”
The Minister of Culture Gets His Wish
T
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There is something in the sound of drum and fife
That stirs all the savage instincts into life.
In the old times of peace we went our ways,
Through proper days
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When from the steeple sounded wedding chimes,
Telling to all the world some maid was wife—
But taking patiently our part in life
Read Poem That stirs all the savage instincts into life.
In the old times of peace we went our ways,
Through proper days
Of little joys and tasks. Lonely at times,
When from the steeple sounded wedding chimes,
Telling to all the world some maid was wife—
But taking patiently our part in life
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Thirteen Implements by W. S. Graham

Do not allow me to sink, I said
To a top floating ribbon of kelp.
As I was lifted on each wave
And made to slide into the vale
I wanted not to drown. I wanted
To make it all right with my dear,
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The Western Emigrant by Lydia Huntley Sigourney

An axe rang sharply ’mid those forest shades
Which from creation toward the skies had tower’d
In unshorn beauty. There, with vigorous arm
Wrought a bold emigrant, and by his side
His little son, with question and response,
Beguiled the toil.
‘Boy, thou hast never seen
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Fall, how the firm earth groans. Rememberest thou
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So many days, on toward the setting sun?
Our own Connecticut, compar’d to that,
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‘Father, the brook
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Read Poem Which from creation toward the skies had tower’d
In unshorn beauty. There, with vigorous arm
Wrought a bold emigrant, and by his side
His little son, with question and response,
Beguiled the toil.
‘Boy, thou hast never seen
Such glorious trees. Hark, when their giant trunks
Fall, how the firm earth groans. Rememberest thou
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Our own Connecticut, compar’d to that,
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‘Father, the brook
That by our door went singing, where I launch’d
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Thus every Creature, and of every Kind,
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Not only Man’s Imperial Race; but they
That wing the liquid Air, or swim the Sea,
Or haunt the Desert, rush into the flame:
For Love is Lord of all; and is in all the same.
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Streets in Shanghai by Tomas Tranströmer

1
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I love that cabbage-moth as if it were a fluttering corner of truth itself!
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To each one, there's also the invisible face reflecting "something you don't talk about."
Something that appears in tired moments and is as rank as a gulp of viper schnapps with its long scaly aftertaste.
Read Poem The white butterfly in the park is being read by many.
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At dawn the running crowds set our quiet planet in motion.
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Something that appears in tired moments and is as rank as a gulp of viper schnapps with its long scaly aftertaste.
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from The Triumph of Love by Geoffrey Hill

I
Sun-blazed, over Romsley, a livid rain-scarp.
XIII
Whose lives are hidden in God? Whose?
Who can now tell what was taken, or where,
or how, or whether it was received:
how ditched, divested, clamped, sifted, over-
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rotted down with leafmould, accepted
as civic concrete, reinforceable
base cinderblocks:
Read Poem Sun-blazed, over Romsley, a livid rain-scarp.
XIII
Whose lives are hidden in God? Whose?
Who can now tell what was taken, or where,
or how, or whether it was received:
how ditched, divested, clamped, sifted, over-
laid, raked over, grassed over, spread around,
rotted down with leafmould, accepted
as civic concrete, reinforceable
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“Vengeance of Jenny’s case! Fie on her! Never name her, child!”—Mrs. Quickly Lazy laughing languid Jenny,
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Hatred and vengeance, my eternal portion,
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Campo dei Fiori by Czeslaw Milosz

In Rome on the Campo dei Fiori
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cobbles spattered with wine
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Vendors cover the trestles
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armfuls of dark grapes
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The Photos by Diane Wakoski

My sister in her well-tailored silk blouse hands me
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in naval uniform and white hat.
I say, “Oh, this is the one which Mama used to have on her dresser.”
My sister controls her face and furtively looks at my mother,
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and says, “No.”
Read Poem the photo of my father
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My sister controls her face and furtively looks at my mother,
a sad rag bag of a woman, lumpy and sagging everywhere,
like a mattress at the Salvation Army, though with no holes or tears,
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Through Alpine meadows soft-suffused
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The bridge is cross'd, and slow we ride,
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The autumnal evening darkens round,
The wind is up, and drives the rain;
While, hark! far down, with strangled sound
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Over his boiling cauldron broods.
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Doth the Dead Guier's stream complain,
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The Ecstasy by John Donne

Where, like a pillow on a bed
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Our hands were firmly cemented
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Our eye-beams twisted, and did thread
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So to'intergraft our hands, as yet
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Apollo Musagetes by Matthew Arnold

Through the black, rushing smoke-bursts,
Thick breaks the red flame;
All Etna heaves fiercely
Her forest-clothed frame.
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Are haunts meet for thee.
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In cliff to the sea,
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Are haunts meet for thee.
But, where Helicon breaks down
In cliff to the sea,
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Send far their light voice
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Lines for Winter by Mark Strand

for Ros Krauss Tell yourself
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Chinese Whispers by John Ashbery

And in a little while we broke under the strain:
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like any tree in any forest.
Mute, the pancake describes you.
It had tiny roman numerals embedded in its rim.
It was a pancake clock. They had ’em in those days,
always getting smaller, which is why they finally became extinct.
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like any tree in any forest.
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It had tiny roman numerals embedded in its rim.
It was a pancake clock. They had ’em in those days,
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To J. S. by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

The wind, that beats the mountain, blows
More softly round the open wold,
And gently comes the world to those
That are cast in gentle mould.
And me this knowledge bolder made,
Or else I had not dare to flow
In these words toward you, and invade
Read Poem More softly round the open wold,
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In these words toward you, and invade
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Kalamazoo by Vachel Lindsay

Once, in the city of Kalamazoo,
The gods went walking, two and two,
With the friendly phoenix, the stars of Orion,
The speaking pony and singing lion.
For in Kalamazoo in a cottage apart
Lived the girl with the innocent heart.
Thenceforth the city of Kalamazoo
Was the envied, intimate chum of the sun.
He rose from a cave by the principal street.
The lions sang, the dawn-horns blew,
And the ponies danced on silver feet.
He hurled his clouds of love around;
Deathless colors of his old heart
Draped the houses and dyed the ground.
Read Poem The gods went walking, two and two,
With the friendly phoenix, the stars of Orion,
The speaking pony and singing lion.
For in Kalamazoo in a cottage apart
Lived the girl with the innocent heart.
Thenceforth the city of Kalamazoo
Was the envied, intimate chum of the sun.
He rose from a cave by the principal street.
The lions sang, the dawn-horns blew,
And the ponies danced on silver feet.
He hurled his clouds of love around;
Deathless colors of his old heart
Draped the houses and dyed the ground.
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Winter: A Dirge by Robert Burns

The wintry west extends his blast,
And hail and rain does blaw;
Or, the stormy north sends driving forth
The blinding sleet and snaw:
While tumbling brown, the burn comes down,
And roars frae bank to brae;
And bird and beast in covert rest,
And pass the heartless day.
The sweeping blast, the sky o’ercast,
The joyless winter-day,
Let others fear, to me more dear
Than all the pride of May:
The tempest’s howl, it soothes my soul,
My griefs it seems to join;
Read Poem And hail and rain does blaw;
Or, the stormy north sends driving forth
The blinding sleet and snaw:
While tumbling brown, the burn comes down,
And roars frae bank to brae;
And bird and beast in covert rest,
And pass the heartless day.
The sweeping blast, the sky o’ercast,
The joyless winter-day,
Let others fear, to me more dear
Than all the pride of May:
The tempest’s howl, it soothes my soul,
My griefs it seems to join;
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Speech: “All the world’s a stage” by William Shakespeare

(from As You Like It, spoken by Jaques)
All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms;
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
Read Poem All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms;
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
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