At the San Francisco Airport By Yvor Winters
To my daughter, 1954
This is the terminal: the light
Gives perfect vision, false and hard;
The metal glitters, deep and bright.
Great planes are waiting in the yard--
They are already in the night.
And you are here beside me, small,
Contained and fragile, and intent
On things that I but half recall--
Yet going whither you are bent.
I am the past, and that is all.
But you and I in part are one:
The frightened brain, the nervous will,
The knowledge of what must be done,
The passion to acquire the skill
To face that which you dare not shun.
The rain of matter upon sense
Destroys me momently. The score:
There comes what will come. The expense
Is what one thought, and something more--
One’s being and intelligence.
This is the terminal, the break.
Beyond this point, on lines of air,
You take the way that you must take;
And I remain in light and stare--
In light, and nothing else, awake.
I, Too by Langston Hughes
I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.
Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.
Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed--
I, too, am America.
In the Time of Plague by Thomas Gunn
My thoughts are crowded with death and it draws so oddly on the sexualthat I am confusedconfused to be attractedby, in effect, my own annihilation.Who are these two, these fiercely attractive men who want me to stick their needle in my arm?They tell me they are called Brad and John,one from here, one from Denver, sitting the same on the bench as they talk to me,their legs spread apart, their eyes attentive.I love their daring, their looks, their jargon,and what they have in mind.Their mind is the mind of death.They know it, and do not know it,and they are like me in that(I know it, and do not know it)and like the flow of people through this bar.Brad and John thirst heroically together for euphoria--for a state of ardent life in which we could all stretch ourselves and lose our differences. I seek to enter their minds: am I fool,and they direct and right, properly testing themselves against risk,as a human must, and does,or are they the fools, their alert faces mere death's heads lighted glamorously?I weigh possibilities still I am afraid of the strength of my own health and of their evident health.They get restless at last with my indecisiveness and so, first one, and then the other,move off into the moving concourse of people who are boisterous and bright carrying in their faces and throughout their bodies the news of life and death.
Irapuato by Earle Birney
For reasons any
brigadier
could tell
this is my favorite nook for massacre
Toltex by Mixtex Mixtex by Aztex
Aztex by Spanishtex Spanishtex by
Mexitex by Mexitex by Mexitex by Texaco
So any farmer can see how the strawberries
are the biggest and reddest
o in the whole damn continent
but why
when arranged under
the market flies
do they look like small clotting hearts?
L'Amitie: To Mrs. M. Awbrey by Katherine Phillips
Soule of my soule! my Joy, my crown, my friend!
A name which all the rest doth comprehend;
How happy are we now, whose souls are grown,
By an incomparable mixture, One:
Whose well acquainted minds are not as near
As Love, or vows, or secrets can endure.
I have no thought but what's to thee reveal'd,
Nor thou desire that is from me conceal'd.
Thy heart locks up my secrets richly set,
And my breast is thy private cabinet.
Thou sheds no teare but what but what my moisture lent,
And if I sigh, it is thy breath is spent.
United thus, what horrour can appear
Worthy our sorrow, anger, or our feare?
Let the dull world alone to talk and fight
And with their vast ambitions nature fright;
Let them despise so innocent a flame,
While Envy, pride, and faction play their game:
But we by Love sublim'd so high shall rise,
To pitty Kings, and Conquerours despise,
Since we that sacred union have engrossed,
Which they and all the sullen world have lost.
La Migra Pat Mora
Let's play La Migra
I'll be the Border Patrol.
You be the Mexican maid.
I get the badge and sunglasses.
You can hide and run,
but you can't get away
because I have a jeep.
I can take you wherever
I want, but don't ask
questions because
I don't speak Spanish.
I can touch you wherever
I want but don't complain
too much because I've got
boots and kick--if I have to,
and I have handcuffs.
Oh, and a gun.
Get ready, get set, run.
II
Let's play La Migra
You be the Border Patrol.
I'll be the Mexican woman.
Your jeep has a flat,
and you have been spotted
by the sun.
All you have is heavy: hat,
glasses, badge, shoes, gun.
I know this desert,
where to rest,
where to drink.
Oh, I am not alone.
You hear us singing
and laughing with the wind,
Agua dulce brota aqui,
aqui, aqui, but since you
can't speak Spanish,
you do not understand.
Get ready.
My Son the Man by Sharon Olds
Suddenly his shoulders get a lot wider,
the way Houdini would expand his body
while people were putting him in chains. It seems
no time since I would help him to put on his sleeper,
guide his calves into the gold interior,
zip him up and toss him up and
catch his weight. I cannot imagine him
no longer a child, and I know I must get ready,
get over my fear of men now my son
is going to be one. This was not
what I had in mind when he pressed up through me like a
sealed trunk through the ice of the Hudson,
snapped the padlock, unsnaked the chains,
and appeared in my arms. Now he looks at me
the way Houdini studied a box
to learn the way out, then smiled and let himself be manacled.
Saturday’s Child by Countee Cullen
Some are teethed on a silver spoon,
With the stars strung for a rattle;
I cut my teeth as the black raccoon--
For implements of battle.
Some are swaddled in silk and down,
And heralded by a star;
They swathed my limbs in a sackcloth gown
On a night that was black as tar.
For some, godfather and goddame
The opulent fairies be;
Dame Poverty gave me my name,
And Pain godfathered me.
For I was born on Saturday--
“Bad time for planting a seed,”
Was all my father had to say,
And, “One mouth more to feed.”
Death cut the strings that gave me life,
And handed me to Sorrow,
The only kind of middle wife
My folks could beg or borrow.
The Lamb by William Blake
Little Lamb who made thee
Dost thou know who made thee
Gave thee life & bid thee feed.
By the stream & o'er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing wooly bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice!
Little Lamb who made thee
Dost thou know who made thee
Little Lamb I'll tell thee,
Little Lamb I'll tell thee!
He is called by thy name,
For he calls himself a Lamb:
He is meek & he is mild,
He became a little child:
I a child & thou a lamb,
We are called by his name.
Little Lamb God bless thee.
Little Lamb God bless thee.
The Vacuum by Howard Nemerov
The house is so quiet now
The vacuum cleaner sulks in the corner closet,
Its bag limp as a stopped lung, its mouth
Grinning into the floor, maybe at my
Slovenly life, my dog-dead youth.
I’ve lived this way long enough,
But when my old woman died her soul
Went into that vacuum cleaner, and I can’t bear
To see the bag swell like a belly, eating the dust
And the woolen mice, and begin to howl
Because there is old filth everywhere
She used to crawl, in the corner and under the stair.
I know now how life is cheap as dirt,
And still the hungry, angry heart
Hangs on and howls, biting at air.
To my daughter, 1954
This is the terminal: the light
Gives perfect vision, false and hard;
The metal glitters, deep and bright.
Great planes are waiting in the yard--
They are already in the night.
And you are here beside me, small,
Contained and fragile, and intent
On things that I but half recall--
Yet going whither you are bent.
I am the past, and that is all.
But you and I in part are one:
The frightened brain, the nervous will,
The knowledge of what must be done,
The passion to acquire the skill
To face that which you dare not shun.
The rain of matter upon sense
Destroys me momently. The score:
There comes what will come. The expense
Is what one thought, and something more--
One’s being and intelligence.
This is the terminal, the break.
Beyond this point, on lines of air,
You take the way that you must take;
And I remain in light and stare--
In light, and nothing else, awake.
I, Too by Langston Hughes
I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.
Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.
Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed--
I, too, am America.
In the Time of Plague by Thomas Gunn
My thoughts are crowded with death and it draws so oddly on the sexualthat I am confusedconfused to be attractedby, in effect, my own annihilation.Who are these two, these fiercely attractive men who want me to stick their needle in my arm?They tell me they are called Brad and John,one from here, one from Denver, sitting the same on the bench as they talk to me,their legs spread apart, their eyes attentive.I love their daring, their looks, their jargon,and what they have in mind.Their mind is the mind of death.They know it, and do not know it,and they are like me in that(I know it, and do not know it)and like the flow of people through this bar.Brad and John thirst heroically together for euphoria--for a state of ardent life in which we could all stretch ourselves and lose our differences. I seek to enter their minds: am I fool,and they direct and right, properly testing themselves against risk,as a human must, and does,or are they the fools, their alert faces mere death's heads lighted glamorously?I weigh possibilities still I am afraid of the strength of my own health and of their evident health.They get restless at last with my indecisiveness and so, first one, and then the other,move off into the moving concourse of people who are boisterous and bright carrying in their faces and throughout their bodies the news of life and death.
Irapuato by Earle Birney
For reasons any
brigadier
could tell
this is my favorite nook for massacre
Toltex by Mixtex Mixtex by Aztex
Aztex by Spanishtex Spanishtex by
Mexitex by Mexitex by Mexitex by Texaco
So any farmer can see how the strawberries
are the biggest and reddest
o in the whole damn continent
but why
when arranged under
the market flies
do they look like small clotting hearts?
L'Amitie: To Mrs. M. Awbrey by Katherine Phillips
Soule of my soule! my Joy, my crown, my friend!
A name which all the rest doth comprehend;
How happy are we now, whose souls are grown,
By an incomparable mixture, One:
Whose well acquainted minds are not as near
As Love, or vows, or secrets can endure.
I have no thought but what's to thee reveal'd,
Nor thou desire that is from me conceal'd.
Thy heart locks up my secrets richly set,
And my breast is thy private cabinet.
Thou sheds no teare but what but what my moisture lent,
And if I sigh, it is thy breath is spent.
United thus, what horrour can appear
Worthy our sorrow, anger, or our feare?
Let the dull world alone to talk and fight
And with their vast ambitions nature fright;
Let them despise so innocent a flame,
While Envy, pride, and faction play their game:
But we by Love sublim'd so high shall rise,
To pitty Kings, and Conquerours despise,
Since we that sacred union have engrossed,
Which they and all the sullen world have lost.
La Migra Pat Mora
Let's play La Migra
I'll be the Border Patrol.
You be the Mexican maid.
I get the badge and sunglasses.
You can hide and run,
but you can't get away
because I have a jeep.
I can take you wherever
I want, but don't ask
questions because
I don't speak Spanish.
I can touch you wherever
I want but don't complain
too much because I've got
boots and kick--if I have to,
and I have handcuffs.
Oh, and a gun.
Get ready, get set, run.
II
Let's play La Migra
You be the Border Patrol.
I'll be the Mexican woman.
Your jeep has a flat,
and you have been spotted
by the sun.
All you have is heavy: hat,
glasses, badge, shoes, gun.
I know this desert,
where to rest,
where to drink.
Oh, I am not alone.
You hear us singing
and laughing with the wind,
Agua dulce brota aqui,
aqui, aqui, but since you
can't speak Spanish,
you do not understand.
Get ready.
My Son the Man by Sharon Olds
Suddenly his shoulders get a lot wider,
the way Houdini would expand his body
while people were putting him in chains. It seems
no time since I would help him to put on his sleeper,
guide his calves into the gold interior,
zip him up and toss him up and
catch his weight. I cannot imagine him
no longer a child, and I know I must get ready,
get over my fear of men now my son
is going to be one. This was not
what I had in mind when he pressed up through me like a
sealed trunk through the ice of the Hudson,
snapped the padlock, unsnaked the chains,
and appeared in my arms. Now he looks at me
the way Houdini studied a box
to learn the way out, then smiled and let himself be manacled.
Saturday’s Child by Countee Cullen
Some are teethed on a silver spoon,
With the stars strung for a rattle;
I cut my teeth as the black raccoon--
For implements of battle.
Some are swaddled in silk and down,
And heralded by a star;
They swathed my limbs in a sackcloth gown
On a night that was black as tar.
For some, godfather and goddame
The opulent fairies be;
Dame Poverty gave me my name,
And Pain godfathered me.
For I was born on Saturday--
“Bad time for planting a seed,”
Was all my father had to say,
And, “One mouth more to feed.”
Death cut the strings that gave me life,
And handed me to Sorrow,
The only kind of middle wife
My folks could beg or borrow.
The Lamb by William Blake
Little Lamb who made thee
Dost thou know who made thee
Gave thee life & bid thee feed.
By the stream & o'er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing wooly bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice!
Little Lamb who made thee
Dost thou know who made thee
Little Lamb I'll tell thee,
Little Lamb I'll tell thee!
He is called by thy name,
For he calls himself a Lamb:
He is meek & he is mild,
He became a little child:
I a child & thou a lamb,
We are called by his name.
Little Lamb God bless thee.
Little Lamb God bless thee.
The Vacuum by Howard Nemerov
The house is so quiet now
The vacuum cleaner sulks in the corner closet,
Its bag limp as a stopped lung, its mouth
Grinning into the floor, maybe at my
Slovenly life, my dog-dead youth.
I’ve lived this way long enough,
But when my old woman died her soul
Went into that vacuum cleaner, and I can’t bear
To see the bag swell like a belly, eating the dust
And the woolen mice, and begin to howl
Because there is old filth everywhere
She used to crawl, in the corner and under the stair.
I know now how life is cheap as dirt,
And still the hungry, angry heart
Hangs on and howls, biting at air.