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English / Hartnett Name: _______________________Poetry Unit Date: ________________________

Introduction to PoetryBilly Collins

I ask them to take a poemand hold it up to the lightlike a color slideor press an ear against its hive.I say drop a mouse into a poemand watch him probe his way out,or walk inside the poem's roomand feel the walls for a light switch.I want them to waterskiacross the surface of a poemwaving at the author's name on the shore.But all they want to dois tie the poem to a chair with ropeand torture a confession out of it.They begin beating it with a hoseto find out what it really means.

English / Hartnett Poetry Unit

GETTING THROUGH

Deborah Pope

Like a car stuck in gear,a chicken too stupid to tell its head is gone, or sound ratcheting on long after the filmhas jumped the reel, or a phone ringing and ringing in the house they have all moved away from, through rooms where dust is a deepening skin, and the locks unneeded, so I go on loving you, my heart blundering on, a muscle spilling out what is no longer wanted and my words hurtling past, like a train off its track, toward a boarded-up station, closed for years, like some last speaker of a beautiful language no one else can hear

2

English / Hartnett Poetry UnitWoman Work Maya Angelou

I've got the children to tendThe clothes to mendThe floor to mopThe food to shopThen the chicken to fryThe baby to dryI got company to feedThe garden to weedI've got shirts to pressThe tots to dressThe can to be cutI gotta clean up this hutThen see about the sickAnd the cotton to pick.

Shine on me, sunshineRain on me, rainFall softly, dewdropsAnd cool my brow again.

Storm, blow me from hereWith your fiercest windLet me float across the sky'Til I can rest again.

Fall gently, snowflakesCover me with whiteCold icy kisses andLet me rest tonight.

Sun, rain, curving skyMountain, oceans, leaf and stoneStar shine, moon glowYou're all that I can call my own.

3

English / Hartnett Poetry UnitA Poison TreeWilliam Blake

I was angry with my friend: I told my wrath, my wrath did end. I was angry with my foe; I told it not, my wrath did grow. And I water'd it in fears, Night & morning with my tears; And I sunned it with my smiles And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night, Till it bore an apple bright; And my foe beheld it shine, And he knew that it was mine,

And into my garden stole When the night had veil'd the pole: In the morning glad I see My foe outstretch'd beneath the tree

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English / Hartnett Poetry UnitSplinterCarl Sandberg

The voice of the last cricket across the first frostis one kind of good-by.It is so thin a splinter of singing.

5

English / Hartnett Poetry UnitTo A Daughter Leaving Home Linda Pastan

When I taught youat eight to ridea bicycle, loping alongbeside youas you wobbled awayon two round wheels,my own mouth roundingin surprise when you pulledahead down the curvedpath of the park,I kept waitingfor the thudof your crash as Isprinted to catch up,while you grewsmaller, more breakablewith distance,pumping, pumpingfor your life, screamingwith laughter,the hair flappingbehind you like ahandkerchief wavinggoodbye.

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English / Hartnett Poetry UnitWe real coolGwendolyn Brooks

We real cool. WeLeft school. We

Lurk late. WeStrike straight. We

Sing sin. WeThin gin. We

Jazz June. WeDie soon.

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English / Hartnett Poetry UnitA tiny cry within the night.Lynn Johnston

A tiny cry within the night,A mother’s touch, a gentle light,A rocking chair, a cheek caressed,A baby to a bosom pressed,A bundle in a cot replaced,Mother’s footsteps soft, retraced,She whispers as the shadows creep…“Now let me sleep! Please, let me sleep!!!”

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English / Hartnett Poetry Unitin the inner cityLucille Clifton

in the inner cityor like we call ithomewe think a lot about uptown and the silent nightsand the houses straight as dead menand the pastel lightsand we hang on to our no placehappy to be aliveand in the inner cityorlike we call ithome

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English / Hartnett Poetry UnitDream DeferredLangston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?Does it dry upLike a raisin in the sun?Or fester like a sore--And then run?Does it stink like rotten meat?Or crust and sugar over--like a syrupy sweet?Maybe it just sagslike a heavy load.Or does it explode?

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English / Hartnett Poetry UnitThe HoundRobert Francis

Life the houndEquivocalComes at a boundEither to rend meOr to befriend me.I cannot tellThe hound’s intentTill he has sprungAt my bare handWith teeth or tongue.Meanwhile I standAnd wait the event

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English / Hartnett Poetry UnitThe Whipping Robert Hayden

The old woman across the way is whipping the boy againand shouting to the neighborhood her goodness and his wrongs.

Wildly he crashes through elephant ears, pleads in dusty zinnias,while she in spite of crippling fat pursues and corners him.

She strikes and strikes the shrilly circling boy till the stick breaksin her hand. His tears are rainy weather to woundlike memories:

My head gripped in bony vise of knees, the writhing struggleto wrench free, the blows, the fear worse than blows that hateful

Words could bring, the face that I no longer knew or loved . . .Well, it is over now, it is over, and the boy sobs in his room,

And the woman leans muttering against a tree, exhausted, purged--avenged in part for lifelong hidings she has had to bear.

12

English / Hartnett Poetry UnitThe Apparition by John Donne

When by thy scorn, O murd'ress, I am dead And that thou think'st thee free From all solicitation from me, Then shall my ghost come to thy bed, And thee, feign'd vestal, in worse arms shall see; Then thy sick taper will begin to wink, And he, whose thou art then, being tir'd before, Will, if thou stir, or pinch to wake him, think Thou call'st for more, And in false sleep will from thee shrink; And then, poor aspen wretch, neglected thou Bath'd in a cold quicksilver sweat wilt lie A verier ghost than I. What I will say, I will not tell thee now, Lest that preserve thee; and since my love is spent, I'had rather thou shouldst painfully repent, Than by my threat'nings rest still innocent.

13

English / Hartnett Poetry UnitMorning Song by Sylvia Plath

Love set you going like a fat gold watch.The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cryTook its place among the elements.

Our voices echo, magnifying your arrival. New statue.In a drafty museum, your nakednessShadows our safety. We stand round blankly as walls.

I'm no more your motherThan the cloud that distills a mirror to reflect its own slowEffacement at the wind's hand.

All night your moth-breathFlickers among the flat pink roses. I wake to listen:A far sea moves in my ear.

One cry, and I stumble from bed, cow-heavy and floralIn my Victorian nightgown.Your mouth opens clean as a cat's. The window square

Whitens and swallows its dull stars. And now you tryYour handful of notes;The clear vowels rise like balloons.

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English / Hartnett Poetry Unit“Pass On” Michael Lee

When searching for the lost remember 8 things.

1. We are vessels. We are circuit boardsswallowing the electricity of life upon birth.It wheels through us creating every moment,the pulse of a story, the soft hums of labor and love.In our last moment it will come rushing from our chests and be given back to the wind.When we die. We go everywhere.

2. Newton said energy is neither created nor destroyed.In the halls of my middle school I can still hear my friend Stephen singing his favorite song. In the gymnasium I can still hear the way he dribbled that basketball like it was a mallet and the earth was a xylophone.With an ear to the Atlantic I can hearthe Titanic’s band playing her to sleep,Music. Wind. Music. Wind.

3. The day my grandfather passed away there was the strongest wind,I could feel his gentle hands blowing away from me. I knew then they were off to find someone who needed them more than I did.On average 1.8 people on earth die every second.There is always a gust of wind somewhere.

4. The day Stephen was murderedeverything that made us love him rushed from his knife woundsas though his chest were an auditoriumhis life an audience leaving single file.Every ounce of him has been wrapping around this world in a windstormI have been looking for him for 9 years.

5. Our bodies are nothing more than hosts to a collection of brilliant things.When someone dies I do not weep over polaroids or belongings,I begin to look for the lightning that has left them,

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English / Hartnett Poetry UnitI feel out the strongest breeze and take off running.

6. After 9 years I found Stephen.I passed a basketball court in Bostonthe point guard dribbled like he had a stadium roaring in his palmsWilt Chamberlain pumping in his feet,his hands flashing like x-rays,a cross-over, a wrap-aroundrewinding, turn-tables cracking open,camera-men turn flash bulbs to fireworks.Seven games and he never missed a shot,his hands were luminous.Pulsing. Pulsing.I asked him how long he’d been playing,he said nine 9 years7. The theory of six degrees of separation was never meant to show how many people we can find,it was a set of directions for how to find the people we have lost.I found your voice Stephen,found it in a young boy in Michigan who was always singing,his lungs flapping like sailsI found your smile in Australia, a young girl’s teeth shining like the opera house in your neck,I saw your one true love come to life on the asphalt of Boston.

8. We are not created or destroyed,we are constantly transferred, shifted and renewed.Everything we are is given to us.Death does not come when a body is too exhausted to liveDeath comes, because the brilliance inside us can only be contained for so long.We do not die. We pass on, pass on the lightning burning through our throats.when you leave me I will not cry for youI will run into the strongest wind I can findand welcome you home

The Summer I Was SixteenGeraldine Connolly

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English / Hartnett Poetry UnitThe turquoise pool rose up to meet us,its slide a silver afterthought down whichwe plunged, screaming, into a mirage of bubbles.We did not exist beyond the gaze of a boy.

Shaking water off our limbs, we liftedup from ladder rungs across the fern-coollip of rim. Afternoon. Oiled and sated,we sunbathed, rose and paraded the concrete,

danced to the low beat of "Duke of Earl".Past cherry colas, hot-dogs, Dreamsicles,we came to the counter where bees staggered

into root beer cups and drowned. We gobbled

cotton candy torches, sweet as furtive kisses,shared on benches beneath summer shadows.Cherry. Elm. Sycamore. We spread our chenilleblankets across grass, pressed radios to our ears,

mouthing the old words, then loosenedthin bikini straps and rubbed baby oil with iodineacross sunburned shoulders, tossing a glancethrough the chain link at an improbable world.

from Province of Fire, 1998Iris Press, Oak Ridge, Tenn.

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The Blue BowlJane Kenyon

Like primitives we buried the catwith his bowl. Bare-handedwe scraped sand and gravelback into the hole.

They fell with a hissand thud on his side,on his long red fur, the white feathersbetween his toes, and hislong, not to say aquiline, nose.

We stood and brushed each other off.There are sorrows keener than these.

Silent the rest of the day, we worked,ate, stared, and slept. It stormedall night; now it clears, and a robinburbles from a dripping bushlike the neighbor who means wellbut always says the wrong thing.

18


LinesMartha Collins

Draw a line. Write a line. There.Stay in line, hold the line, a glancebetween the lines is fine but don'tturn corners, cross, cut in, go overor out, between two points of noreturn's a line of flight, betweentwo points of view's a line of vision.But a line of thought is rarelystraight, an open line's no partyline, however fine your point.A line of fire communicates, but dropyour weapons and drop your line,consider the shortest distance from xto y, let x be me, let y be you.

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FightLaurel Blossom

That is the difference between me and you.You pack an umbrella, #30 sun gooAnd a red flannel shirt. That's not what I do.

I put the top down as soon as we arrive.The temperature's trying to pass fifty-five.I'm freezing but at least I'm alive.

Nothing on earth can diminish my glee.This is Florida, Florida, land of euphoria,Florida in the highest degree.

You dig in the garden. I swim in the pool.I like to wear cotton. You like to wear wool.You're always hot. I'm usually cool.

You want to get married. I want to be free.You don't seem to mind that we disagree.And that is the difference between you and me.

20

English / Hartnett Poetry UnitNumbersMary Cornish

I like the generosity of numbers.The way, for example,they are willing to countanything or anyone:two pickles, one door to the room,eight dancers dressed as swans.

I like the domesticity of addition--add two cups of milk and stir--the sense of plenty: six plumson the ground, three morefalling from the tree.

And multiplication's schoolof fish times fish,whose silver bodies breedbeneath the shadowof a boat.

Even subtraction is never loss,just addition somewhere else:

five sparrows take away two,the two in someone else'sgarden now.

There's an amplitude to long division,as it opens Chinese take-outbox by paper box,inside every folded cookiea new fortune.

And I never fail to be surprisedby the gift of an odd remainder,footloose at the end:forty-seven divided by eleven equals four,with three remaining.

Three boys beyond their mothers' call,two Italians off to the sea,one sock that isn't anywhere you look.

21

English / Hartnett Poetry UnitThe CordLeanne O’Sullivan

I used to lie on the floor for hours afterschool with the phone cradled betweenmy shoulder and my ear, a plate of coldrice to my left, my school books to my right.Twirling the cord between my fingersI spoke to friends who recognized thelanguage of our realm. Throats and lungsswollen, we talked into the heart of the night,toying with the idea of hair dye and suicide,about the boys who didn’t love us, who we loved too much, the pangof the nights. Each sentence wasnew territory, like a door someone wasrushing into, the glass shatteringwith delirium, with knowledge and fear.My Mother never complained about the phone bill,what it cost for her daughter to disappearbehind a door, watching the cordstretching its muscle away from her.Perhaps she thought it was the only wayshe could reach me, sending me awayto speak in the underworld.As long as I was speakingshe could put my ear to the tenuous earthand allow me to listen, to decipher.And these were the elements of my Mother,the earthed wire, the burning cable,as if she flowed into the room withme to somehow say, Stay where I can reach you,the dim room, the dark earth. Speak of thisand when you feel removed from itI will pull the cord and take youback towards me.

22


The BatTheodore Roethke

By day the bat is cousin to the mouse.He likes the attic of an aging house.

His fingers make a hat about his head.His pulse beat is so slow we think him dead.

He loops in crazy figures half the nightAmong the trees that face the corner light.

But when he brushes up against a screen,We are afraid of what our eyes have seen:

For something is amiss or out of placeWhen mice with wings can wear a human face.

23


Piazza PieceJohn Crowe Ransom

—I am a gentleman in a dustcoat tryingTo make you hear. Your ears are soft and smallAnd listen to an old man not at all,They want the young men's whispering and sighing.But see the roses on your trellis dyingAnd hear the spectral singing of the moon;For I must have my lovely lady soon,I am a gentleman in a dustcoat trying.

—I am a lady young in beauty waitingUntil my truelove comes, and then we kiss.But what gray man among the vines is thisWhose words are dry and faint as in a dream?Back from my trellis, Sir, before I scream!I am a lady young in beauty waiting.

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The PoetTom Wayman

Loses his position on worksheet or page in textbookMay speak much but makes little senseCannot give clear verbal instructionsDoes not understand what he readsDoes not understand what he hearsCannot handle “yes-no” questions

Has great difficulty interpreting proverbsHas difficulty recalling what he ate for breakfast, etc.Cannot tell a story from a pictureCannot recognize visual absurdities

Has difficulty classifying and categorizing objectsHas difficulty retaining such things asaddition and subtraction facts, or multiplication tablesMay recognize a word one day and not the next

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English / Hartnett Poetry UnitRadioLaurel BlossomNo radioin car No radio on boardNo radioAlready stolenAbsolutely no radio!Radio brokenAlarm is setTo go offNo radioNo moneyNo radiono valuablesNo radio orvaluablesin car or trunkNo radioStolen 3XNo radioEmpty trunkEmpty glove compartmentHonestIn carNothing of value

No radioNo nuthin(no kidding)Radio BrokenNothing Left!Radio GoneNote Hole in DashboardWarning!Radio Will Not PlayWhen RemovedSecurity Code RequiredWould you keepAnything valuableIn this wreck?No valuablesIn this vanPlease do notBreak-inUnnecessarilyThank youFor your kindConsiderationNothing of valuein carNo radioNo tapesNo telephone

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English / Hartnett Poetry UnitBad DayKay Ryan

Not every dayis a good dayfor the elfin tailor.Some daysthe stolen clothreveals what it was made for:a handsome weskitor the jerkinof an elfin sailor.Other daysthe tailorsees a jacketin his mindand sets aboutto find the fabric.But some daysneither the ideanor the materialpresents itself;and these are the hard daysfor the tailor elf.

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The FarewellEdward Field

They say the ice will holdso there I go,forced to believe them by my act of trusting people,stepping out on it,

and naturally it gaps openand I, forced to carry on coollyby my act of being imperturbable,slide erectly into the water wearing my captain's helmet,waving to the shore with a sad smile,"Goodbye my darlings, goodbye dear one,"as the ice meets again over my head with a click.

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The Partial ExplanationCharles Simic

Seems like a long timeSince the waiter took my order.Grimy little luncheonette,The snow falling outside.

Seems like it has grown darkerSince I last heard the kitchen doorBehind my backSince I last noticedAnyone pass on the street.

A glass of ice-waterKeeps me companyAt this table I chose myselfUpon entering.

And a longing,Incredible longingTo eavesdropOn the conversationOf cooks.

29


Human AbstractWilliam Blake

Pity would be no more, If we did not make somebody Poor; And Mercy no more could be, If all were as happy as we;

And mutual fear brings peace, Till the selfish loves increase; Then Cruelty knits a snare, And spreads his baits with care.

He sits down with holy fears, And waters the ground with tears; Then Humility takes its root Underneath his foot.

Soon spreads the dismal shade Of Mystery over his head; And the Caterpillar and Fly Feed on the Mystery.

And it bears the fruit of Deceit, Ruddy and sweet to eat; And the Raven his nest has made In its thickest shade.

The Gods of the earth and sea, Sought through Nature to find this Tree, But their search was all in vain; There grows one in the Human Brain.

30


TourCarol Snow

Near a shrine in Japan he'd swept the pathand then placed camellia blossoms there.

Or -- we had no way of knowing -- he'd swept the pathbetween fallen camellias.

31


Domestic Work, 1937Natasha Trethewey

All week she's cleanedsomeone else's house,stared down her own facein the shine of copper-bottomed pots, polishedwood, toilets she'd pullthe lid to--that look saying

Let's make a change, girl.

But Sunday mornings are hers--church clothes starchedand hanging, a record spinningon the console, the whole housedancing. She raises the shades,washes the rooms in light,buckets of water, Octagon soap.

Cleanliness is next to godliness ...

Windows and doors flung wide,curtains two-steppingforward and back, neck bonesbumping in the pot, a choirof clothes clapping on the line.

Nearer my God to Thee ...

She beats time on the rugs,blows dust from the broomlike dandelion spores, each onea wish for something better.

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PoetryDon Paterson

In the same way that the mindless diamond keepsone spark of the planet's early firestrapped forever in its net of ice,it's not love's later heat that poetry holds,but the atom of the love that drew it forthfrom the silence: so if the bright coal of his lovebegins to smoulder, the poet hears his voicesuddenly forced, like a bar-room singer's -- boastfulwith his own huge feeling, or drowned by violins;but if it yields a steadier light, he knowsthe pure verse, when it finally comes, will soundlike a mountain spring, anonymous and serene.

Beneath the blue oblivious sky, the watersings of nothing, not your name, not mine.

33


FoundationsLeopold Staff

I built on the sandAnd it tumbled down,I built on a rockAnd it tumbled down.Now when I build, I shall beginWith the smoke from the chimney.

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Advice from the ExpertsBill Knott

I lay down in the empty street and parkedMy feet against the gutter's curb while fromThe building above a bunch of gawkers perchedAlong its ledges urged me don't, don't jump.

35


One MorningEamon Grennan

Looking for distinctive stones, I found the dead otterrotting by the tideline, and carried all day the scent of this savagevalediction. That headlong high sound the oystercatcher makescame echoing through the rocky covewhere a cormorant was feeding and submarining in the bayand a heron rose off a boulder where he'd been invisible,drifted a little, stood again -- a hieroglyphor just longevity reflecting on itselfbetween the sky clouding over and the lightly ruffled water.

This was the morning after your dream of dying, of being heldand told it didn't matter. A butterfly went jinking overthe wave-silky stones, and where I turnedto go up the road again, a couple in a blue camper satsmoking their cigarettes over their breakfast coffee (bluescent of smoke, the thick dark smell of fresh coffee)and talking in quiet voices, first one then the other answering,their radio telling the daily news behind them. It was warm.All seemed at peace. I could feel the sun coming off the water.

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Publication DateFranz Wright

One of the few pleasures of writingis the thought of one’s book in the hands of a kind-heartedintelligent person somewhere. I can’t remember what the others are right now.I just noticed that it is my own private

National I Hate Myself and Want to Die Day(which means the next day I will love my lifeand want to live forever). The forecast callsfor a cold night in Boston all morning

and all afternoon. They saytomorrow will be just like today,only different. I’m in the cemetery nowat the edge of town, how did I get here?

A sparrow limps past on its little bone crutch sayingI am Frederico Garcia Lorcarisen from the dead–literature will lose, sunlight will win, don’t worry.

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The MeadowKate Knapp Johnson

Half the day lost, staringat this window. I wanted to knowjust one true thing

about the soul, but I left thinkingfor thought, and now -two inches of snow have fallen

over the meadow. Where did I go,how long was I out lookingfor you?, who would never leave me,my withness, my here.

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Gouge, Adze, Rasp, HammerChris Forhan

So this is what it's like when loveleaves, and one is disappointedthat the body and mind continue to exist,exacting payment from each other,engaging in stale rituals of desire,and it would seem the best use of one's timeis not to stand for hours outsideher darkened house, drenched and chilled,blinking into the slanting rain.So this is what it's like to have topractice amiability and learnto say the orchard looks grand this eveningas the sun slips behind scumbled cloudsand the pears, mellowed to a golden-green,glow like flames among the boughs.It is now one claims there is comfortin the constancy of nature, in the wind's wayof snatching dogwood blossoms from their branches,scattering them in the dirt, in the slug'ssure, slow arrival to nowhere.It is now one makes a show of praisefor the lilac that strains so hard to winattention to its sweet inscrutability,when one admires instead the lowlygouge, adze, rasp, hammer--fire-forged, blunt-syllabled things,unthought-of until a need exists:a groove chiseled to a fixed width,a roof sloped just so. It is nowone knows what it is to envythe rivet, wrench, vise -- whateverworks unburdened by memory and sight,while high above the damp fieldsflocks of swallows roil and dip,and streams churn, thick with leaping salmon,and the bee advances on the rose.

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She Didn't Mean to Do ItDaisy Fried

Oh, she was sad, oh, she was sad.She didn't mean to do it.

Certain thrills stay tucked in your limbs,go no further than your fingers, move your legs through their paces,but no more. Certain thrills knock you flaton your sheets on your bed in your room and you fadeand they fade. You falter and they're gone, gone, gone.Certain thrills puff off you like smoke rings,some like bell rings growing out, out, turningbrass, steel, gold, till the whole world's filledwith the gonging of your thrills.

But oh, she was sad, she was just sad, sad,and she didn't mean to do it.

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Cartoon Physics, part 1Nick FlynnChildren under, say, ten, shouldn't knowthat the universe is ever-expanding,inexorably pushing into the vacuum, galaxiesswallowed by galaxies, wholesolar systems collapsing, all of itacted out in silence. At ten we are still learningthe rules of cartoon animation,that if a man draws a door on a rockonly he can pass through it.Anyone else who trieswill crash into the rock. Ten-year-oldsshould stick with burning houses, car wrecks,ships going down -- earthbound, tangibledisasters, arenaswhere they can be heroes. You can runback into a burning house, sinking shipshave lifeboats, the trucks will comewith their ladders, if you jumpyou will be saved. A childplaces her hand on the roof of a schoolbus,& drives across a city of sand. She knowsthe exact spot it will skid, at which pointthe bridge will give, who will swim to safety& who will be pulled under by sharks. She will learnthat if a man runs off the edge of a cliffhe will not falluntil he notices his mistake.

41


Two HaikuBasho, Moritake

The lightning flashes!And slashing through the darkness,A night-heron’s screech

Basho

The falling flowerI saw drift back to the branchWas a butterfly

Moritake

42


Driving to Town Late to Mail a LetterRobert Bly

It is a cold and snowy night. The main street is deserted.The only things moving are swirls of snow.As I lift the mailbox door, I feel its cold iron.There is a privacy I love in this snowy night.Driving around, I will waste more time.

43


In the WellAndrew Hudgins

My father cinched the rope,a noose around my waist,and lowered me intothe darkness. I could taste

my fear. It tasted firstof dark, then earth, then rot.I swung and struck my headand at that moment got

another then: then blood,which spiked my mouth with iron.Hand over hand, my fatherdropped me from then to then:

then water. Then wet fur,which I hugged to my chest.I shouted. Daddy hauledthe wet rope. I gagged, and pressed

my neighbor's missing dogagainst me. I held its deathand rose up to my father.Then light. Then hands. Then breath.

44


A Man I KnewMargaret Levine

has a condo

a maid who comesevery other week

kids who won't

are on the dresserthey float forever

like a boat

45


That Sure is My Little DogEleanor LermanYes, indeed, that is my house that I am carrying around on my back like a bullet-proof shell and yes, that sure ismy little dog walking a hard road in hard boots. And just wait until you see my girl, chomping on the chainsof fate with her mouth full of jagged steel. She’s damnready and so am I. What else did you expect from the brainiacs of my generation? The survivors, the nonbelievers, the oddball-outs with the Cuban Missile Crisis still sizzling in our blood? Don’t tell me that you bought our act, just because our worried parents (and believe me,we’re nothing like them) taught us how to dress for workand to speak as if we cared about our education. And I guess the music fooled you: you thought we’d keep the party going even to the edge of the abyss. Well,too bad. It’s all yours now. Good luck on the ramparts.What you want to watch for is when the sky shakesitself free of kites and flies away. Have a nice day.

46


Harriet Beecher StowePaul Laurence Dunbar

She told the story, and the whole world weptAt wrongs and cruelties it had not knownBut for this fearless woman's voice alone.She spoke to consciences that long had slept:Her message, Freedom's clear reveille, sweptFrom heedless hovel to complacent throne.Command and prophecy were in the tone,And from its sheath the sword of justice leapt.Around two peoples swelled a fiery wave,But both came forth transfigured from the flame.Blest be the hand that dared be strong to save,And blest be she who in our weakness came—Prophet and priestess! At one stroke she gaveA race to freedom, and herself to fame.

47


The Rose That Grew From ConcreteLasane Parish Crooks AKA Tupac Shakur

Did you hear about the rose that grewfrom a crack in the concrete?Proving nature's law is wrong itlearned to walk with out having feet.Funny it seems, but by keeping its dreams,it learned to breathe fresh air.Long live the rose that grew from concretewhen no one else ever cared.

48


Ode to Enchanted LightPablo Neruda

Ode To Enchanted Light

Under the trees lighthas dropped from the top of

the sky,lightlike a greenlatticework of branches,shiningon every leaf,drifting down like cleanwhite sand.

A cicada sendsits sawing songhigh into the empty air.

The world isa glass overflowingwith water.

Oda a la luz encantada

La luz bajo los árboles,la luz del alto cielo.

La luzverdeenramadaque fulguraen la hojay cae como frescaarena blanca.

Una cigarra elevasu son de aserraderosobre la transparencia.

Es una copa llenade aguael mundo.

49


Forgotten LanguageShel Silverstein

Once I spoke the language of the flowers, Once I understood each word the caterpillar said, Once I smiled in secret at the gossip of the starlings, And shared a conversation with the housefly

in my bed. Once I heard and answered all the questions

of the crickets, And joined the crying of each falling dying

flake of snow, Once I spoke the language of the flowers. . . .

How did it go? How did it go?

50


Lyric 17José Garcia Villa

First, a poem must be magical, Then musical as sea gull. It must be a brightness moving And hold secret a bird's flowering. It must be slender as a bell, And it must hold fire as well. It must have the wisdom of bows And it must kneel like a rose. It must be able to hear The luminance of dove and deer. It must be able to hide What it seeks, like a bride. And over all I would like to hover God, smiling from the poem's cover.

51


“A Boat”Richard Brautigan

O beautifulwas the werewolfin his evil forest.We took himto the carnivaland he started cryingwhen he sawthe Ferris wheel.Electricgreen and red tearsflowed downhis furry cheeks.He lookedlike a boatout on the darkwater.

52


The Dark HillsEdward Arlington Robinson

Dark hills at evening in the west,Where sunset hovers like a soundOf golden horns that sang to restOld bones of warriors under ground,Far now from all the bannered waysWhere flash the legions of the sun,You fade -- as if the last of daysWere fading, and all wars were done.

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An incident in a rose gardenMargaret LevineGardener

Master

Death

Sir, I encountered DeathJust now among our rosesThin as a scythe he stood there.

I knew him by his picturesHe had on his black coatBlack gloves, and broad black hat.

I think he would have spoken,Seeing his mouth stood open.Big it was, with white teeth.

As soon asI want to see California.he beckoned, I ran.I ran until I found you.Sir, I'm quitting my job.

I want to see my sonsOnce more before I die.

Sir, you must be that strangerWho threatened my gardener.This is my property, sir.

I welcome only friends here.

Sir, I knew your father.And we were friends at the end.

As for your gardener,I did not threaten him.Old men mistake my gestures.

I only meant to ask himTo show me to his master.I take it you are he?

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Another Reason Why I Don’t Keep a Gun in the HouseBilly Collins

The neighbors' dog will not stop barking. He is barking the same high, rhythmic bark that he barks every time they leave the house. They must switch him on on their way out.

The neighbors' dog will not stop barking. I close all the windows in the house and put on a Beethoven symphony full blast but I can still hear him muffled under the music, barking, barking, barking,

and now I can see him sitting in the orchestra, his head raised confidently as if Beethoven had included a part for barking dog.

When the record finally ends he is still barking, sitting there in the oboe section barking, his eyes fixed on the conductor who is entreating him with his baton

while the other musicians listen in respectful silence to the famous barking dog solo, that endless coda that first established Beethoven as an innovative genius.

55


Poem About Your LaughSusan Glickman

When you laugh it is all the unsynchronized clocksin the watchmaker's shopstriking their dissident hours.It is six blind kittens having the nipples pluckedfrom their mouths.It is the ecstatic susurrus of prayer wheels.

When you laugh innumerablepine trees shed their needles at once on one sideof the forest, indefinably altering the ecosystem.A thousand miles awaytwo sharks lose their taste for blood,mate, start a new species.

When you laugh your mouthis the Mammoth Cave in Kentuckyand I can curl up there among the batsintercepting their sonar.Oh, your mouth is a diver's bell;it takes me down untold fathoms.

And when you laugh, old dogs limpto new patches of sunlightwhich they bury for later, knowing somethingabout need.

56


Einstein’s CatThe real secret of Albert’s geniusTom Skinner

Albert’s catSat on the space-time continuumEating his curds and wheyWhen a hickory dickory dockJumped over the moon To fetch a pail of waterThus irrefutably proving Energy equals mouse times cheese squaredThe real genius in the householdWas a rhyming top CatA Tom Cat,A Cool CatCalled TigerWhose melancholic rainy moments Gave rise to the phrase

‘A problem halved is one that has been shared’

57


If You Forget MePablo Neruda

I want you to knowone thing.

You know how this is:if I lookat the crystal moon, at the red branchof the slow autumn at my window,if I touchnear the firethe impalpable ashor the wrinkled body of the log,everything carries me to you,as if everything that exists,aromas, light, metals,were little boatsthat sailtoward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now,if little by little you stop loving meI shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenlyyou forget medo not look for me,for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,the wind of bannersthat passes through my life,and you decideto leave me at the shoreof the heart where I have roots,rememberthat on that day,at that hour,I shall lift my armsand my roots will set offto seek another land.

Butif each day,each hour,you feel that you are destined for mewith implacable sweetness,if each day a flowerclimbs up to your lips to seek me,ah my love, ah my own,in me all that fire is repeated,in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,my love feeds on your love, beloved,and as long as you live it will be in your armswithout leaving mine..

58


SnowDavid Berman

Walking through a field with my little brother Seth

I pointed to a place where kids had made angels in the snow.For some reason, I told him that a troop of angelshad been shot and dissolved when they hit the ground.

He asked who had shot them and I said a farmer.

Then we were on the roof of the lake.The ice looked like a photograph of water.

Why he asked. Why did he shoot them.

I didn't know where I was going with this.

They were on his property, I said.

When it's snowing, the outdoors seem like a room.

Today I traded hellos with my neighbor.Our voices hung close in the new acoustics.A room with the walls blasted to shreds and falling.

We returned to our shoveling, working side by side in silence.

But why were they on his property, he asked.

59


JanuaryJohn Updike

The days are short,The sun a spark,Hung thin betweenThe dark and dark.

Fat snowy footstepsTrack the floor.Milk bottles burstOutside the door.

The river isA frozen placeHeld still beneathThe trees of lace.

The sky is low.The wind is gray.The radiatorPurrs all day.

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