Literary Pieces

[literary-pieces]

W. H. Auden :: Funeral Blues

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone, Silence the pianos and with muffled drum Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead Scribbling on the sky the message ‘He is Dead’. Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves, Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West, My working week and my Sunday rest, My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song; I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one, Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun, Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood; For nothing now can ever come to any good.

[literary-pieces]

William Butler Yeats :: The Second Coming

Turning and turning in the widening gyre   The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere   The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst   Are full of passionate intensity. Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand.   The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out   When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert   A shape with lion body and the head of a man,   A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,   Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it   Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.   The darkness drops again; but now I know   That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,   And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,   Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

[literary-pieces]

Charles Bukowski :: Old Man, Dead in a Room

this thing upon me is not death but it’s as real and as landlords full of maggots pound for rent I eat walnuts in the sheath of my privacy and listen for more important drummers; it’s as real, it’s as real as the broken-boned sparrow cat-mouthed, uttering more than mere miserable argument; between my toes I stare at clouds, at seas of gaunt sepulcher. . . and scratch my back and form a vowel as all my lovely women (wives and lovers) break like engines into steam of sorrow to be blown into eclipse; bone is bone but this thing upon me as I tear the window shades and walk caged rugs, this thing upon me like a flower and a feast, believe me is not death and is not glory and like Quixote’s windmills makes a foe turned by the heavens against one man; …this thing upon me, great god, this thing upon me crawling like snake, terrifying my love of commonness, some call Art some call Poetry; it’s not death but dying will solve its power and as my grey hands drop a last desperate pen in some cheap room they will find me there and never know my name my meaning nor the treasure of my escape.

[allyourprettywords]

"Somewhere a Band is Playing," Ray Bradbury

Somewhere a band is playing, Playing the strangest tunes, Of sunflower seeds and sailors Who tide with the strangest moons. Somewhere a drummer simmers And trembles with times forlorn, Remembering days of summer In futures yet unborn. Futures so far they are ancient And filled with Egyptian dust, That smell of the tomb and the lilac, And seed that is spent from lust, And peach that is hung on a tree branch Far out in the sky from one’s reach, There mummies as lovely as lobsters Remember old futures and teach. And children sit by on the stone floor And draw out their lives in the sands, Remembering deaths that won’t happen In futures unseen in far lands. Somewhere a band is playing Where the moon never sets in the sky And nobody sleeps in the summer And nobody puts down to die; And Time then just goes on forever And hearts then continue to beat To the sound of the old moon-drum drumming And the glide of Eternity’s feet; Somewhere the old people wander And linger themselves into noon And sleep in the wheat fields yonder To rise as fresh children with moon. Somewhere the children, old, maunder And know what it is to be dead And turn in their weeping to ponder Oblivious filed ‘neath their bed. And sit at the long dining table Where Life makes a banquet of flesh, Where dis-able makes itself able And spoiled puts on new masks of fresh. Somewhere a band is playing Oh listen, oh listen that tune! If you learn it you’ll dance on forever In June and yet June and more June. And Death will be dumb and not clever And Death will lie silent forever In June and June and more June.

[literary-pieces]

Edna St. Vincent Millay :: Song of  a Second April

April this year, not otherwise   Than April of a year ago, Is full of whispers, full of sighs,   Of dazzling mud and dingy snow;   Hepaticas that pleased you so Are here again, and butterflies.

There rings a hammering all day,   And shingles lie about the doors; In orchards near and far away   The grey wood-pecker taps and bores;   The men are merry at their chores, And children earnest at their play.

The larger streams run still and deep,   Noisy and swift the small brooks run Among the mullein stalks the sheep   Go up the hillside in the sun,   Pensively,—only you are gone, You that alone I cared to keep.

[literary-pieces]

T. S. Eliot :: Ash Wednesday

Lady of silences Calm and distressed Torn and most whole Rose of memory Rose of forgetfulness Exhausted and life-giving Worried reposeful The single Rose Is now the Garden Where all loves end Terminate torment Of love unsatisfied The greater torment Of love satisfied End of the endless Journey to no end Conclusion of all that Is inconclusible Speech without word and Word of no speech Grace to the Mother For the Garden Where all love ends. (extract)

[julesofnature]

Tonight’s December thirty-first, Something is about to burst. The clock is crouching, dark and small, Like a time bomb in the hall. Hark, it’s midnight, children dear. Duck! Here comes another year!

Ogden Nash (via julesofnature)

[apoemaday]

The Idea of Order at Key West

by Wallace Stevens

She sang beyond the genius of the sea.   The water never formed to mind or voice,   Like a body wholly body, fluttering Its empty sleeves; and yet its mimic motion   Made constant cry, caused constantly a cry,   That was not ours although we understood,   Inhuman, of the veritable ocean. The sea was not a mask. No more was she.   The song and water were not medleyed sound   Even if what she sang was what she heard,   Since what she sang was uttered word by word. It may be that in all her phrases stirred   The grinding water and the gasping wind;   But it was she and not the sea we heard. For she was the maker of the song she sang.   The ever-hooded, tragic-gestured sea Was merely a place by which she walked to sing.   Whose spirit is this? we said, because we knew   It was the spirit that we sought and knew   That we should ask this often as she sang. If it was only the dark voice of the sea   That rose, or even colored by many waves;   If it was only the outer voice of sky And cloud, of the sunken coral water-walled,   However clear, it would have been deep air,   The heaving speech of air, a summer sound   Repeated in a summer without end And sound alone. But it was more than that,   More even than her voice, and ours, among The meaningless plungings of water and the wind,   Theatrical distances, bronze shadows heaped   On high horizons, mountainous atmospheres   Of sky and sea.                           It was her voice that made   The sky acutest at its vanishing.   She measured to the hour its solitude.   She was the single artificer of the world In which she sang. And when she sang, the sea,   Whatever self it had, became the self That was her song, for she was the maker. Then we,   As we beheld her striding there alone, Knew that there never was a world for her   Except the one she sang and, singing, made. Ramon Fernandez, tell me, if you know,   Why, when the singing ended and we turned   Toward the town, tell why the glassy lights,   The lights in the fishing boats at anchor there,   As the night descended, tilting in the air,   Mastered the night and portioned out the sea,   Fixing emblazoned zones and fiery poles,   Arranging, deepening, enchanting night. Oh! Blessed rage for order, pale Ramon,   The maker’s rage to order words of the sea,   Words of the fragrant portals, dimly-starred,   And of ourselves and of our origins, In ghostlier demarcations, keener sounds.

[literary-pieces]

Charles Bukowski

the best Christmas I can remember I was in a tiny room in  Philadelphia and I pulled down all the shades and went to bed and pulled up the covers.

there was no telephone. there were no Christmas cards. there was no family. there were no gifts.

and I believe that I felt better than anybody in that city and almost anybody in any of the  cities.

and I celebrated New Year’s Eve in the same manner.

[literary-pieces]

Rudy Francisco :: Mercy

after Nikki Giovanni

She asks me to kill the spider. Instead, I get the most peaceful weapons I can find.

I take a cup and a napkin. I catch the spider, put it outside and allow it to walk away.

If I am ever caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, just being alive and not bothering anyone,

I hope I am greeted with the same kind of mercy.

[olearypoetry]

[literary-pieces]

The Fifth of November

  Remember, remember!    The fifth of November,    The Gunpowder treason and plot;    I know of no reason    Why the Gunpowder treason    Should ever be forgot!    Guy Fawkes and his companions    Did the scheme contrive,    To blow the King and Parliament    All up alive.    Threescore barrels, laid below,    To prove old England's overthrow.    But, by God's providence, him they catch,    With a dark lantern, lighting a match!    A stick and a stake    For King James's sake!    If you won't give me one,    I'll take two,    The better for me,    And the worse for you.    A rope, a rope, to hang the Pope,    A penn'orth of cheese to choke him,    A pint of beer to wash it down,    And a jolly good fire to burn him.    Holloa, boys! holloa, boys! make the bells ring!    Holloa, boys! holloa boys! God save the King!    Hip, hip, hooor-r-r-ray!

[literary-pieces]

Charles Bukowski :: it was just a little while ago

almost dawn blackbirds on the telephone wire waiting as I eat yesterday's forgotten sandiwch at 6 a.m. one a quiet Sunday morning.

one shoe in the corner standing upright the other laying on its side.

yes, some lives were made to be wasted.

[ssukgat]

persimmons that are giving me grief / thank god for helen oyeyemi

[literary-pieces]

H.D. :: Cassandra

O Hymen king. Hymen, O Hymen king, what bitter thing is this? what shaft, tearing my heart? what scar, what light, what fire searing my eye-balls and my eyes with flame? nameless, O spoken name, king, lord, speak blameless Hymen. Why do you blind my eyes? why do you dart and pulse till all the dark is home, then find my soul and ruthless draw it back? scaling the scaleless, opening the dark? speak, nameless, power and might; when will you leave me quite? when will you break my wings or leave them utterly free to scale heaven endlessly? A bitter, broken thing, my heart, O Hymen lord, yet neither drought nor sword baffles men quite, why must they feign to fear my virgin glance? feigned utterly or real why do they shrink? my trance frightens them, breaks the dance, empties the market-place; if I but pass they fall back, frantically; must always people mock? unless they shrink and reel as in the temple at your uttered will. O Hymen king, lord, greatest, power, might, look for my face is dark, burnt with your light, your fire, O Hymen lord; is there none left can equal me in ecstasy, desire? is there none left can bear with me the kiss of your white fire? is there not one, Phrygian or frenzied Greek, poet, song-swept, or bard, one meet to take from me this bitter power of song, one fit to speak, Hymen, your praises, lord? May I not wed as you have wed? may it not break, beauty, from out my hands, my head, my feet? may Love not lie beside me till his heat burn me to ash? may he not comfort me, then, spent of all that fire and heat, still, ashen-white and cool as the wet laurels, white, before your feet step on the mountain-slope, before your fiery hand lift up the mantle covering flower and land, as a man lifts, O Hymen, from his bride, (cowering with woman eyes,) the veil? O Hymen lord, be kind.

[literary-pieces]

William Blake :: The Sick Rose

O Rose, thou art sick! The invisible worm That flies at night In the howling storm,

Has found out thy bed Of crimson joy: And his dark secret love Does thy life destroy.

[literary-pieces]

Pablo Neruda :: Poem XIV

Every day you play with the light of the universe. Subtle visitor, you arrive in the flower and the water. You are more than this white head that I hold tightly as a cluster of fruit, every day, between my hands.

You are like nobody since I love you. Let me spread you out among yellow garlands. Who writes your name in letters of smoke among the stars of the south? Oh let me remember you as you were before you existed.

Suddenly the wind howls and bangs at my shut window. The sky is a net crammed with shadowy fish. Here all the winds let go sooner or later, all of them. The rain takes off her clothes.

The birds go by, fleeing. The wind. The wind. I can contend only against the power of men. The storm whirls dark leaves and turns loose all the boats that were moored last night to the sky.

You are here. Oh, you do not run away. You will answer me to the last cry. Cling to me as though you were frightened. Even so, at one time a strange shadow ran through your eyes.

Now, now too, little one, you bring me honeysuckle, and even your breasts smell of it. While the sad wind goes slaughtering butterflies I love you, and my happiness bites the plum of your mouth.

How you must have suffered getting accustomed to me, my savage, solitary soul, my name that sends them all running. So many times we have seen the morning star burn, kissing our eyes, and over our heads the gray light unwind in turning fans.

My words rained over you, stroking you. A long time I have loved the sunned mother-of-pearl of your body. I go so far as to think that you own the universe. I will bring you happy flowers from the mountains, bluebells, dark hazels, and rustic baskets of kisses.

I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.