The temperature’s rising. Time to think about eating outside and settling in at a sidewalk cafe to watch the world go by. But beware! Dangers lurk everywhere and we need new punctuation to express our outraged reaction to a whole range of disasters. I love Paul Violi’s list in this poem. And – when you … Read more
Jerry Harp’s commentary in the Kenyon Review brought this poem back to mind. Always good to be reminded of William Stafford. At The Bomb Testing Site by William Stafford At noon in the desert a panting lizard waited for history, its elbows tense, watching the curve of a particular road as if something might happen. … Read more
So there I was, wandering about, Strolling the gardens, minding my own business The way one does on an April afternoon Unencumbered by seder or service, Thinking random simple thoughts *** About the world and its ways. A frog at the margin, sitting tight. A goose honked. Flowers peeping by the stones, Buds bursting out … Read more
Love and taxes, grief and loss. This can be a tough time of year. Read Laura Kasischke’s wonderful poem and put your personal concerns aside. Understand there are atomic stockpiles to pay for so get your taxes done. April That was the year in which we had to pay the tax on love, which was grief, … Read more
‘We’re going to see the rabbit’ We are going to see the rabbit. We are going to see the rabbit. Which rabbit, people say? Which rabbit, ask the children? Which rabbit? The only rabbit, The only rabbit in England, Sitting behind a barbed-wire fence Under the floodlights, neon lights, Sodium lights, Nibbling grass On the … Read more
We pay through the nose for subjecting of foes. Abroad we’re defeated, at home, we ‘re cheated. The ides of April are upon us and that means taxes. Just read this astoundingly relevant piece of tax outrage. It provides some consolation that “twas ever thus. A Ballad on the Taxes by Edward Ward 1. Good … Read more
In Memoriam (Easter, 1915) The flowers left thick at nightfall in the wood This Eastertide call into mind the men, Now far from home, who, with their sweethearts, should Have gathered them and will do never again. by Edward Thomas Three British soldiers waiting in a trench. One stands leaning against the wall … Read more
Lines Written in Early Spring by William Wordsworth I heard a thousand blended notes, While in a grove I sate reclined, In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts Bring sad thoughts to the mind. To her fair works did Nature link The human soul that through me ran; And much it grieved my heart to … Read more
Epitaph on a Tyrant Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after, And the poetry he invented was easy to understand; He knew human folly like the back of his hand, And was greatly interested in armies and fleets; When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter, And when he cried the little children … Read more
What Kinds of Times are These by Adrienne Rich There’s a place between two stands of trees where the grass grows uphill and the old revolutionary road breaks off into shadows near a meeting-house abandoned by the persecuted who disappeared into those shadows. I’ve walked there picking mushrooms at the edge of dread, but don’t … Read more
A Facebook friend wanted some crowd-sourcing help for a piece she was editing. Her query asked readers to end the sentence “When you think of lard …?” My answer was: “When I think of lard I think of Wiltshire lardy cake. Delicious. I also think of my mother – 75 years a vegetarian – who … Read more
The Journey by Mary Oliver One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice– though the whole house began to tremble and you felt the old tug at your ankles. ‘Mend my life!’ each voice cried. But you didn’t stop. You knew … Read more
This poem is for anyone who has ever sat through a Shakespeare play and found it too long. Purgatory by Maxine Kumin And suppose the darlings get to Mantua, suppose they cheat the crypt, what next? Begin with him, unshaven. Though not, I grant you, a displeasing cockerel, there’s egg yolk on his chin. His … Read more
Subway Rush Hour by Langston Hughes Mingled breath and smell so close mingled black and white so near no room for fear. Hughes published Subway Rush Hour in 1951 part of “Montage of a Dream Deferred”. In “My Early Days in Harlem” 1963 he wrote of his arrival Harlem as a young man from the mid-West. … Read more
Coming by Philip Larkin On longer evenings, Light, chill and yellow, Bathes the serene Foreheads of houses. A thrush sings, Laurel-surrounded In the deep bare garden, Its fresh-peeled voice Astonishing the brickwork. It will be spring soon, It will be spring soon— And I, whose childhood Is a forgotten boredom, Feel like a child Who … Read more