the plaster

w.s. merwin

how unlike you

to have left the best of your writings here

behind the plaster where they were never to be found

these stanzas of long lines into which the welsh words

had been flung like planks from a rough sea

how will i

ever know now how much was not like you

and what else was committed to paper here

on the dark burst sofa where you would later die

its back has left a white mark on the white wall and above that

five and a half indistinct squares of daylight

like pages in water

slide across the blind plaster

into which you slipped the creased writings as into a mail slot

in a shroud

this is now the house of the rain that falls from death

the sky is moving its things in from under the trees

in silence

as it must have started to do even then

there is still a pile of dirty toys and rags

in the corner where they found the children

rolled in sleep

other writings

must be dissolving in the roof

twitching black edges in cracks of the wet fireplaces

stuck to shelves in the filthy pantry

never to be found

what is like you now

who were haunted all your life by the best of you

hiding in your death

flowers

by arthur rimbaud

from a golden step,— among silk cords, 

green velvets, gray gauzes, 

and crystal disks that 

turn black as bronze in the sun, 

i see the digitalis opening 

on a carpet of silver filigree, 

of eyes and hair. yellow gold-pieces 

strewn over agate, mahogany columns supporting 

emerald domes, bouquets of white satin 

and delicate sprays of rubies, 

surround the water-rose. 

like a god with huge blue eyes and limbs of snow, 

the sea and sky lure to the marble terraces 

the throng of roses, young and strong.

lullaby

by w.h. auden

lay your sleeping head, my love,

human on my faithless arm;

time and fevers burn away

individual beauty from

thoughtful children, and the grave

proves the child ephemeral:

but in my arms till break of day

let the living creature lie,

mortal, guility, but to me

the entirely beautiful.

soul and body have no bounds:

to lovers as they lie upon

her tolerant enchanted slope

in their ordinary swoon,

grave the vision venus sends

of supernatural sympathy,

universal love and hope;

while abstract insight wakes

among the glaciers and the rocks

the hermit's sensual ecstasy.

certainty, fidelity

on the stroke of midnight pass

like vibrations of a bell,

and fashionable madmen raise

their pedantic boring cry:

every farthing of the cost,

all the dreaded cards foretell,

shall be paid, but from this night

not a whisper, not a thought,

not a kiss nor look be lost.

beauty, midnight, vision dies:

let the winds of dawn that blow

softly round your dreaming head

such a day of sweetness show

eye and knocking heart may bless,

find your mortal world enough;

noons of dryness see you fed

by the involuntary powers,

nights of insult let you pass

watched by every human love.

ash wednesday

by t.s. eliot

because i do not hope to turn again

because i do not hope

because i do not hope to turn

desiring this man's gift and that man's scope

i no longer strive to strive towards such things

(why should the aged eagle stretch its wings?)

why should i mourn

the vanished power of the usual reign?

because i do not hope to know again

the infirm glory of the positive hour

because i do not think

because i know i shall not know

the one veritable transitory power

because i cannot drink

there, where trees flower, and springs flow, for there is nothing again

because i know that time is always time

and place is always and only place

and what is actual is actual only for one time

and only for one place

i rejoice that things are as they are and

i renounce the blessed face

and renounce the voice

because i cannot hope to turn again

consequently i rejoice, having to construct something

upon which to rejoice

and pray to god to have mercy upon us

and pray that i may forget

these matters that with myself i too much discuss

too much explain

because i do not hope to turn again

let these words answer

for what is done, not to be done again

may the judgement not be too heavy upon us

because these wings are no longer wings to fly

but merely vans to beat the air

the air which is now thoroughly small and dry

smaller and dryer than the will

teach us to care and not to care

teach us to sit still.

pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death

pray for us now and at the hour of our death.

lady, three white leopards sat under a juniper-tree

in the cool of the day, having fed to satiety

on my legs my heart my liver and that which had been contained

in the hollow round of my skull. and God said

shall these bones live? shall these

bones live? and that which had been contained

in the bones (which were already dry) said chirping:

because of the goodness of this lady

and because of her loveliness, and because

she honours the virgin in meditation,

we shine with brightness. and i who am here dissembled

proffer my deeds to oblivion, and my love

to the posterity of the desert and the fruit of the gourd.

it is this which recovers

my guts the strings of my eyes and the indigestible portions

which the leopards reject. the Lady is withdrawn

in a white gown, to contemplation, in a white gown.

let the whiteness of bones atone to forgetfulness.

there is no life in them. as i am forgotten

and would be forgotten, so i would forget

thus devoted, concentrated in purpose. and god said

prophesy to the wind, to the wind only for only

the wind will listen. and the bones sang chirping

with the burden of the grasshopper, saying

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.

under a juniper-tree the bones sang, scattered and shining

we are glad to be scattered, we did little good to each other,

under a tree in the cool of the day, with the blessing of sand,

forgetting themselves and each other, united

in the quiet of the desert. this is the land which ye

shall divide by lot. and neither division nor unity

matters. this is the land. we have our inheritance.

at the first turning of the second stair

i turned and saw below

the same shape twisted on the banister

under the vapour in the fetid air

struggling with the devil of the stairs who wears

the deceitul face of hope and of despair.

at the second turning of the second stair

i left them twisting, turning below;

there were no more faces and the stair was dark,

damp, jagged, like an old man's mouth drivelling, beyond repair,

or the toothed gullet of an aged shark.

at the first turning of the third stair

was a slotted window bellied like the figs's fruit

and beyond the hawthorn blossom and a pasture scene

the broadbacked figure drest in blue and green

enchanted the maytime with an antique flute.

blown hair is sweet, brown hair over the mouth blown,

lilac and brown hair;

distraction, music of the flute, stops and steps of the mind over the third stair,

fading, fading; strength beyond hope and despair

climbing the third stair.

lord, i am not worthy

lord, i am not worthy

but speak the word only.

who walked between the violet and the violet

who walked between

the various ranks of varied green

going in white and blue, in mary's colour,

talking of trivial things

in ignorance and knowledge of eternal dolour

who moved among the others as they walked,

who then made strong the fountains and made fresh the springs

made cool the dry rock and made firm the sand

in blue of larkspur, blue of mary's colour,

sovegna vos

here are the years that walk between, bearing

away the fiddles and the flutes, restoring

one who moves in the time between sleep and waking, wearing

white light folded, sheathing about her, folded.

the new years walk, restoring

through a bright cloud of tears, the years, restoring

with a new verse the ancient rhyme. Redeem

the time. redeem

the unread vision in the higher dream

while jewelled unicorns draw by the gilded hearse.

the silent sister veiled in white and blue

between the yews, behind the garden god,

whose flute is breathless, bent her head and signed but spoke no word

but the fountain sprang up and the bird sang down

redeem the time, redeem the dream

the token of the word unheard, unspoken

till the wind shake a thousand whispers from the yew

and after this our exile

if the lost word is lost, if the spent word is spent

if the unheard, unspoken

word is unspoken, unheard;

still is the unspoken word, the word unheard,

the word without a word, the word within

the world and for the world;

and the light shone in darkness and

against the word the unstilled world still whirled

about the centre of the silent Word.

o my people, what have i done unto thee.

where shall the word be found, where will the word

resound? not here, there is not enough silence

not on the sea or on the islands, not

on the mainland, in the desert or the rain land,

for those who walk in darkness

both in the day time and in the night time

the right time and the right place are not here

no place of grace for those who avoid the face

no time to rejoice for those who walk among noise and deny the voice

will the veiled sister pray for

those who walk in darkness, who chose thee and oppose thee,

those who are torn on the horn between season and season, time and time, between

hour and hour, word and word, power and power, those who wait

in darkness? will the veiled sister pray

for children at the gate

who will not go away and cannot pray:

pray for those who chose and oppose

o my people, what have i done unto thee.

will the veiled sister between the slender

yew trees pray for those who offend her

and are terrified and cannot surrender

and affirm before the world and deny between the rocks

in the last desert before the last blue rocks

the desert in the garden the garden in the desert

of drouth, spitting from the mouth the withered apple-seed.

o my people.

although i do not hope to turn again

although i do not hope

although i do not hope to turn

wavering between the profit and the loss

in this brief transit where the dreams cross

the dreamcrossed twilight between birth and dying

(bless me father) though i do not wish to wish these things

from the wide window towards the granite shore

the white sails still fly seaward, seaward flying

unbroken wings

and the lost heart stiffens and rejoices

in the lost lilac and the lost sea voices

and the weak spirit quickens to rebel

for the bent golden-rod and the lost sea smell

quickens to recover

the cry of quail and the whirling plover

and the blind eye creates

the empty forms between the ivory gates

and smell renews the salt savour of the sandy earth this is the time of tension between dying and birth the place of solitude where three dreams cross between blue rocks but when the voices shaken from the yew-tree drift away let the other yew be shaken and reply.

blessed sister, holy mother, spirit of the fountain, spirit of the garden,

suffer us not to mock ourselves with falsehood

teach us to care and not to care

teach us to sit still

even among these rocks,

our peace in his will

and even among these rocks

sister, mother

and spirit of the river, spirit of the sea,

suffer me not to be separated

and let my cry come unto thee.

"i've seen horrors... horrors that you've seen. but you have no right to call me a murderer. you have a right to kill me. you have a right to do that... but you have no right to judge me. it's impossible for words to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what horror means. horror... horror has a face... and you must make a friend of horror. horror and moral terror are your friends. if they are not, then they are enemies to be feared. they are truly enemies! i remember when i was with special forces... seems a thousand centuries ago. we went into a camp to inoculate some children. we left the camp after we had inoculated the children for polio, and this old man came running after us and he was crying. he couldn't see. we went back there, and they had come and hacked off every inoculated arm. there they were in a pile. a pile of little arms. and i remember... i... i... i cried, i wept like some grandmother. i wanted to tear my teeth out; i didn't know what I wanted to do! and i want to remember it. i never want to forget it... i never want to forget. and then i realized... like i was shot... like i was shot with a diamond... a diamond bullet right through my forehead. and i thought, my god... the genius of that! the genius! the will to do that! perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure. and then i realized they were stronger than we, because they could stand that these were not monsters, these were men... trained cadres. these men who fought with their hearts, who had families, who had children, who were filled with love... but they had the strength... the strength... to do that. if i had ten divisions of those men, our troubles here would be over very quickly. you have to have men who are moral... and at the same time who are able to utilize their primordial instincts to kill without feeling... without passion... without judgment... without judgment! because it's judgment that defeats us."

pity this busy monster, manunkind

by e.e. cummings

pity this busy monster, manunkind,

not. progress is a comfortable disease:

your victim (death and life safely beyond)

plays with the bigness of his littleness

--- electrons deify one razorblade

into a mountainrange; lenses extend

unwish through curving wherewhen till unwish

returns on its unself.

a world of made

is not a world of born --- pity poor flesh

and trees, poor stars and stones, but never this

fine specimen of hypermagical

ultraomnipotence. we doctors know

a hopeless case if - listen: there's a hell

of a good universe next door; let's go