Seamus Heaney

Digging

Digging

By Seamus Heaney 1939–2013 Seamus Heaney

Between my finger and my thumb   

The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.

Under my window, a clean rasping sound   

When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:   

My father, digging. I look down

Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds   

Bends low, comes up twenty years away   

Stooping in rhythm through potato drills   

Where he was digging.

The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft   

Against the inside knee was levered firmly.

He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep

To scatter new potatoes that we picked,

Loving their cool hardness in our hands.

By God, the old man could handle a spade.   

Just like his old man.

My grandfather cut more turf in a day

Than any other man on Toner’s bog.

Once I carried him milk in a bottle

Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up

To drink it, then fell to right away

Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods

Over his shoulder, going down and down

For the good turf. Digging.

The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap

Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge

Through living roots awaken in my head.

But I’ve no spade to follow men like them.

Between my finger and my thumb

The squat pen rests.

I’ll dig with it.

Gary Snyder

Old Woman Nature

Old Woman Nature

By Gary Snyder b. 1930 Gary Snyder

Old Woman Nature

naturally has a bag of bones

                tucked away somewhere.

                a whole room full of bones!

A scattering of hair and cartilage

               bits in the woods.

A fox scat with hair and a tooth in it.

               a shellmound

                      a bone flake in a streambank.

A purring cat, crunching

               the mouse head first,

                       eating on down toward the tail--

 

The sweet old woman

               calmly gathering firewood in the

               moon . . .

Don't be shocked,

She's heating you some soup.

 

                            VII, '81, Seeing Ichikawa Ennosuke in

                      "Kurozuka"—"Demoness"— at the Kabuki-za

                                                       in Tokyo

Aleister Crowley (1875-1947)

The Pentagram

[Dedicated to George Raffalovich]


In the Years of the Primal Course, in the dawn of terrestrial
birth,
Man mastered the mammoth and horse, and Man was the
Lord of the Earth.

He made him an hollow skin from the heart of an holy tree,
He compassed the earth therien, and Man was the Lord of
the Sea.

He controlled the vigour of steam, he harnessed the light-
ning for hire;
He drove the celestial team, and man was the Lord of the
Fire.

Deep-mouthed from their thrones deep-seated, the choirs
of the æeons declare
The last of the demons defeated, for Man is the Lord of
the Air.

Arise, O Man, in thy strength! the kingdom is thine to
inherit,
Till the high gods witness at lenght that Man is the Lord
of his spirit.

Aleister Crowley :

Hidenori Ishii

Joanne Monte

Eight-fifteen

(a.m.) the city
was split by lightning,
stripped down to bone, and tortured,
its flesh lashed by flames…

suddenly
I was beggared,
wearing the rags of loose skin,
hanging like pockets lined with blood.

I could not see
the earth's incinerator,
its volcanic madness, blinded by hair,
burnt darker than matchsticks
and dusted with soot,

but I could feel
the meltdown in my fingers
like soft beeswax, clasping each other
as though desperate lovers—
lovers in torment,
gnarled in the arms of war.

I had crawled
from among the dying,
the children curled like fetuses
in their mother's wombs, the unborn;

crawled from under the black rain
of suffering, the ill-smell of survival;

a disfigured hope
seen clutching the red-and-white hibiscus
from my mother's kimono
that became part of my flesh.


(Note: 8: 15 a.m., the time on August 6,1945 that the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.)

Joanne Monte :

Charles Bukowski (1920-1994)

back to the machine gun

I awaken about noon and go out to get the mail
in my old torn bathrobe.
I'm hung over
hair down in my eyes
barefoot
gingerly walking on the small sharp rocks
in my path
still afraid of pain behind my four-day beard.

the young housewife next door shakes a rug
out of her window and sees me:
"hello, Hank!"

god damn! it's almost like being shot in the ass
with a .22

"hello," I say
gathering up my Visa card bill, my Pennysaver coupons,
a Dept. of Water and Power past-due notice,
a letter from the mortgage people
plus a demand from the Weed Abatement Department
giving me 30 days to clean up my act.

I mince back again over the small sharp rocks
thinking, maybe I'd better write something tonight,
they all seem
to be closing in.

there's only one way to handle those motherfuckers.

the night harness races will have to wait.

Charles Bukowski :

Jackie Saccoccio

Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

It is always wise to look ahead, but difficult to look further than you can see.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)

Sonnet 14 - If thou must love me, let it be for nought

XIV

If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love's sake only. Do not say
'I love her for her smile—her look—her way
Of speaking gently,—for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day'—
For these things in themselves, Beloved, may
Be changed, or change for thee,—and love, so wrought,
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry,—
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!
But love me for love's sake, that evermore
Thou mayst love on, through love's eternity.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning :

Joy Harjo

Eagle Poem

By Joy Harjo b. 1951       

To pray you open your whole self

To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon

To one whole voice that is you.

And know there is more

That you can’t see, can’t hear;

Can’t know except in moments

Steadily growing, and in languages

That aren’t always sound but other

Circles of motion.

Like eagle that Sunday morning

Over Salt River. Circled in blue sky

In wind, swept our hearts clean

With sacred wings.

We see you, see ourselves and know

That we must take the utmost care

And kindness in all things.

Breathe in, knowing we are made of

All this, and breathe, knowing

We are truly blessed because we

Were born, and die soon within a

True circle of motion,

Like eagle rounding out the morning

Inside us.

We pray that it will be done

In beauty.

In beauty.

Shel Silverstein (1930-1999)

“How many slams in an old screen door? Depends how loud you shut it. How many slices in a bread? Depends how thin you cut it. How much good inside a day? Depends how good you live 'em. How much love inside a friend? Depends how much you give 'em.”
― Shel Silverstein

John Coltrane (1926-1967)

“My goal is to live the truly religious life, and express it in my music. If you live it, when you play there's no problem because the music is part of the whole thing. To be a musician is really something. It goes very, very deep. My music is the spiritual expression of what I am - my faith, my knowledge, my being.”
― John Coltrane

Li-Young Lee

The Sacrifice

We come to each other
exactly at the center,
the spine of ample fire, and suffer
to be revised.
Stay with me.

Weren't we promised
the sheer flame, bright change
so clean even our clothes wouldn't smell of smoke,
not one hair of our heads would be singed?
Yet, just now, didn't the tongues slip
loose and hot about my neck?
Stay close now.

The sound is like a rustling coming from chambers.
someone sifting through thousands
of pages, the histories of rapture,
looking for a happy ending.
The sound is like the sea,
which is very far away.
Are you scared?

There are many things
which are far from us now.
Try to recall a few of them:
the iron in the bath water
that made you taste of rust.
The rabbit screaming in the night,
its innards strewn

on the stoop like prophesy.
Can you hear me? Say something.
Tell me what you remember of our life.
The torn dress you threw away,
a piece of which I rescued and used as a scarf.
Are you still with me? Say something.
Does this hurt very much? Are you here?

Li-Young Lee :

Mikael Aldo

Wislawa Szymborska (1923-2012)

Could Have

It could have happened.
It had to happen.
It happened earlier. Later.
Nearer. Farther off.
It happened, but not to you.
You were saved because you were the first.
You were saved because you were the last.
Alone. With others.
On the right. The left.
Because it was raining. Because of the shade.
Because the day was sunny.

You were in luck -- there was a forest.
You were in luck -- there were no trees.
You were in luck -- a rake, a hook, a beam, a brake,
A jamb, a turn, a quarter-inch, an instant . . .

So you're here? Still dizzy from
another dodge, close shave, reprieve?
One hole in the net and you slipped through?
I couldn't be more shocked or
speechless.
Listen,
how your heart pounds inside me.

 

Wislawa Szymborska :

Terry Moore

Chella Courington

A Mother’s Tale
I tell my son
that the best poems
are written in the sand
and washed away with the tide.
I say, the moon controls the waves,
uses the wind to rake the shore.
It is an open invitation to fill
the world with words
because like seashells
you can never have too many.
I tell him to wade into the water.
Start a conversation with
the tiniest grain on the beach,
the one that catches his eye with its glint.
It will tell him everything he needs to know
about this moment, about how to stay in it
a little longer. It will tell him how to be,
for an instant, the thing he most wants
to become.

Dana Teen Lomax

Lullaby
I’m sure God has a mean streak
whoever there is
whatever there is
picks what we’ve decided can’t hurt us or won’t happen
to humble everyone
when we least expect it
Superman can no longer move then dies
Wendy Wasserstein leaves behind her 7-year-old daughter
BP and our own subtle habits spew on and kill us off
just to reiterate the precious.

Dale Ziemianski

Umberto Saba (1883-1957)

Trieste

 

(Ho attraversata tutta la città)

 

I traversed the whole city.

Then climbed a hill

crowded at first, in the end deserted,

closed off by a little wall,

a corner where I alone

sit; and it seems to me where it ends

the city ends.

 

Trieste has a sullen

grace, If you like,

it’s a delinquent, bitter, voracious,

with blue eyes and hands too clumsy

to offer flowers;

like love

possessed by jealousy.

From this hill I discover every church,

every street, follow them to the cluttered shore,

or the stony slope, on whose

summit a house, the last one, clings.

Circling,

surrounding all these things

a strange air, a tormented air,

the native air.

My city, alive in every part,

has left this corner for me, for my life,

pensive, and quiet.

Miles Davis (1921-1996)

“If you understood everything I said, you’d be me”  

Joni Mitchell

Axl Rose

“I realize I make exactly the same scream whether a great white is attacking me or there's a piece of seaweed brushing my leg.”
― Axl Rose

Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867)

Je n’ai pas oublié, voisine de la ville,’

 

I’ve not forgotten, near to the town,

our white house, small but alone:

its Pomona of plaster, its Venus of old

hiding nude limbs in the meagre grove,

and the sun, superb, at evening, streaming,

behind the glass, where its sheaves were bursting,

a huge eye in a curious heaven, present

to gaze at our meal, lengthy and silent,

spreading its beautiful candle glimmer

on the frugal cloth and the rough curtain.

Margaret Atwood

Siren Song

This is the one song everyone
would like to learn: the song
that is irresistible:

the song that forces men
to leap overboard in squadrons
even though they see beached skulls

the song nobody knows
because anyone who had heard it
is dead, and the others can’t remember.
Shall I tell you the secret
and if I do, will you get me
out of this bird suit?
I don’t enjoy it here
squatting on this island
looking picturesque and mythical
with these two feathery maniacs,
I don’t enjoy singing
this trio, fatal and valuable.

I will tell the secret to you,
to you, only to you.
Come closer. This song

is a cry for help: Help me!
Only you, only you can,
you are unique

at last. Alas
it is a boring song
but it works every time.

Margaret Atwood :

Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)

“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it--always.”  

Steve McGill

Norval Morrisseau (1932-2007)

Nora Ephron

"There are plenty of men who philander during the summer, to be sure, but they are usually the same lot who philander during the winter - albeit with less convenience."
-  Nora Ephron 

Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894)

"For him in vain the envious seasons roll
Who bears eternal summer in his soul."
-  Oliver Wendell Holmes, The Old Player

Michael Brown

 

John Ashbery

SOME TREES

John Ashbery

---

These are amazing: each
Joining a neighbor, as though speech
Were a still performance.
Arranging by chance To meet as far this morning
From the world as agreeing
With it, you and I
Are suddenly what the trees try To tell us we are:
That their merely being there
Means something; that soon
We may touch, love, explain. And glad not to have invented
Such comeliness, we are surrounded:
A silence already filled with noises,
A canvas on which emerges A chorus of smiles, a winter morning.
Placed in a puzzling light, and moving,
Our days put on such reticence
These accents seem their own defense.