My darling Kit, they’ve caught you again
no worldly stage enlarged enough
always this rank and compare
parse, parsimonious
praise too faint too late
you can’t escape
betraying
knife-edge
words
Having fun with this news item, my enduring fascination with Marlowe and (why not?) another nonet.
How can I fathom this spectral procession?
Shall I rejoice that you drape sea-nymphs
with pearls, weave some glowing sea-change
to make courtiers of naught but magicked bones
fleshed, bedecked with rich coral and plumes,
your yearning after flowers? When the vision
doth fade, do we not suffer, being yet more alone?
O strange, that I should want to see beyond
this watery cave to the sunlit air whence came
this gold, these chests, these spars;
to crave speech of other, real woman or man
to see beyond this blackness, stars?
Having fun with Jane Dougherty’s invitation to imagine a story for this painting by Ilya Repin. I couldn’t resist sprinkling in some Shakespeare.
On stage of this world’s stage we see the play
of poems, songs and laughter—nobler view
than groundlings with their beer or tourists who
find rain to usher homeward from the Globe
and next day, gazing down from Greenwich train
we sigh at houseyards’ laundry, weeds and junk—
forgetting cities live and pulse and breathe
beyond the graystone, ancient sites we trek
with weary feet and spinning, weary minds
Come, therefore, mournful Muses, and lament;
And sorrow feed, feeding our souls with sorrow,
Lost to all music now, since everything
From the dull confines of the drooping West
Death says he will undo and drag down low,
And whisper to their souls to go.
Aye, we must die an everlasting death
And see the brave day sunk in hideous night,
His rage, with razing your immortal town,
The burg broken and burnt to brands and ashes.
When night’s black mantle could most darkness prove
A true retreat of sorrow and despair,
Let us roll all our strength, and all—
We shall new shadows make the other way.
Another cento, title from Piers Plowman. Click the last word of each line to find its source.
in cars, airports, airplanes, trains
this tote carried me and my goods
in iambic pentameter, Wallace Stevens,
I wish that I might be a thinking stone
(to admire far-below surroundings
of fair-furrowed hay-gold,
corn-green fields: why
you prospered, why
Saxons wanted you)
holiday humanity at the wax-works
shouting and camera-flash but here
in his corner, Dickens, and yea verily
Shakespeare, standing
then after the kerfuffle over Baker Street
while hungry, footsore we rattled
in the packed train all subterranean
children on our way to who knows
where or why: a song of apple boughs
pasted on the wall, Dylan Thomas,
and I was green and carefree
under the new made clouds
and happy as the heart was long
Miss Havisham, dear Ophelia, let us flee
this dark house, the cruelty of misplaced
desire, the paneling of which is suitable
only for our coffins. Let us find another wood,
a brighter home of our own choosing, lush
with fern, moss-hushed, honeysuckle glinting,
scenting the sunlight and the hill-born(e)
breeze. Let us step from the shade into glade
of pink foxglove, listen for rocks’ water-song
and silence of trees.
There is no revenge in pity,
no sympathy in surrender, so cast off your wrecked
dresses, your sodden tresses; care not about full-
filling hours. We will study butterfly wings, speech
of birds. We will deck ourselves with wild roses—
or toss them at the b(r)ook.
Graceful Press Poetry 