January, 2012Archive

Jan 31

For a Five-Year-Old (Adcock)

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For a Five-Year-Old, by Fleur Adcock (1934-) A snail is climbing up the window-sill Into your room, after a night of rain. You call me in to see, and I explain That it would be unkind to leave it there: It might crawl to the floor; we must take care That no one squashes it. […]

Jan 30

Something Like a Rainbow (Benfey)

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Something Like a Rainbow, by Christopher Benfey (1954-) The storms that make it into poems most often leave something like disaster in their wake: the wine-glass elms in pieces on the lawn, the chimney cracked, the basement a shallow lake. This morning’s storm was nothing much by contrast — a shiver of wind, no more […]

Jan 29

Say Not the Struggle Naught Availeth (Clough)

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Say Not The Struggle Naught Availeth, by Arthur Hugh Clough (1819-1861) Say not the struggle naught availeth, The labour and the wounds are vain, The enemy faints not, nor faileth, And as things have been they remain. If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars; It may be, in yon smoke conceal’d, Your comrades chase […]

Jan 28

The New Experience (Buffam)

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The New Experience, by Suzanne Buffam (1972-) I was ready for a new experience. All the old ones had burned out. They lay in little ashy heaps along the roadside And blew in drifts across the fairgrounds and fields. From a distance some appeared to be smoldering But when I approached with my hat in […]

Jan 27

Field (Collins)

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Field, by Martha Collins (1940-) The window fell out the window and having only a frame to refer to, we entered a new field, the space filled with lightness, wheat field, sweet field, field of vision, field and ground, and the puzzle became the principle, a page without a single tree, but you kept coming […]

Jan 26

Desire (Mazur)

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Desire, by Gail Mazur (1937-) It was a kind of torture—waiting to be kissed. A dark car parked away from the street lamp, away from our house where my tall father would wait, his face visible at a pane high in the front door. Was my mother always asleep? A boy reached for me, I […]

Jan 25

Representation (Waldrop)

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Representation, by Rosmarie Waldrop (1935-) I have no conscience because I always chew my pencil. Can we say white paper with black lines on it is like a human body? This question not to be decided by pointing at a tree nor yet by a description of simple pleasures. Smell of retrieval. Led to expect […]

Jan 24

Under the Linden Branches (Freeman)

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Under the Linden Branches, by John Freeman (1880-1929) Under the linden branches They sit and whisper; Hardly a quiver Of leaves, hardly a lisp or Sigh in the air. Under the linden branches They sit, and shiver At the slow air’s fingers Drawn through the linden branches Where the year’s sweet lingers; And sudden avalanches […]

Jan 23

For An American Burial (Starbuck)

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For An American Burial, by George Starbuck (1931-1996) Slowly out of the dusk-bedeviled air, and off the passing blades of the gang plow and suddenly in state, as here and now, the earth gathers earth. The earth is fair; all that the earth demands is the earth’s share; all that we pervade and revel in […]

Jan 22

Night Life (Smith)

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Night Life, by Vivian Smith (1933-)   Disturbed at 2 a.m. I hear a claw scratching the window, tapping at the pane, and then I realise, a broken branch, and yet I can’t turn back to sleep again.   Slowly, not to wake you, I get up, thinking of food, perhaps a quiet read. A […]

Words That Burn