Animal poems
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Cullen in the Afterlife
© P. K. Page
He must wake up. He must expose and strip
successive layers to ?nd his soul again.
Where had the rubble come from? He was like
a junkyard—cluttered, ?lled with scrap iron, tin.
As dead as any metal not in use.
Driving through Minnesota During the Hanoi Bombings
© Robert Bly
We drive between lakes just turning green;
Late June. The white turkeys have been moved
Vixen
© William Stanley Merwin
Comet of stillness princess of what is over
high note held without trembling without voice without sound
Reminiscences A Darwin
© Henri Cazalis
Je sens un monde en moi de confuses pensees,
Je sens obscurement que j'ai vecu toujours,
Que j'ai longtemps erre dans les forets passees,
Et que la bete encor garde en moi ses amours.
The Country Whore
© Cesare Pavese
It often returns, in the slow rise from sleep,
that undone aroma of far-off flowers,
of barns and of sun. No man can know
the subtle caress of that sour memory.
No man can see, beyond that sprawled body,
that childhood passed in such clumsy anxiety.
The Alpaca
© Jim Carroll
She is harnessed for a long journey; on her back she carries an entire store of wool.
She walks without rest, and sees with eyes full of strangeness. The wool merchant has forgotten to come to get her, and she is ready.
In this world, nothing comes better equipped than the alpaca; ones is more burdened with rags than the next. Her sky-high softness is such that if a newborn is placed on her back, he will not feel a bone of the animal.
The weather is very hot. Today, large scissors that will cut and cut represent mercy for the alpaca.
They are hostile nations
© Margaret Atwood
In view of the fading animals
the proliferation of sewers and fears
the sea clogging, the air
nearing extinction
from Jubilate Agno
© Christopher Smart
let elizur rejoice with the partridge
Let Elizur rejoice with the Partridge, who is a prisoner of state and is proud of his keepers.
from The Botanic Garden, “The Economy of Vegetation”: Canto I
© Erasmus Darwin
Argument
The Genius of the place invites the Goddess of Botany, 1. She descends, is received by Spring, and the Elements, 59. Addresses the Nymphs of Fire. Star-light Night seen in the Camera Obscura, 81. I. Love created the Universe. Chaos explodes. All the Stars revolve. God, 97. II. Shooting Stars. Lightning. Rainbow. Colours of the Morning and Evening Skies. Exterior Atmosphere of inflammable Air. Twilight. Fire-balls. Aurora Borealis. Planets. Comets. Fixed Stars. Sun’s Orb, 115. III. 1. Fires of the Earth’s Centre. Animal Incubation, 137. 2. Volcanic Mountains. Venus visits the Cyclops, 149. IV. Heat confined on the Earth by the Air. Phosphoric lights in the Evening. Bolognian Stone. Calcined Shells. Memnon’s Harp, 173. Ignis fatuus. Luminous Flowers. Glow-worm. Fire-fly. Luminous Sea-insects. Electric Eel. Eagle armed with Lightning, 189. V. 1. Discovery of Fire. Medusa, 209. 2. The chemical Properties of Fire. Phosphorus. Lady in Love, 223. 3. Gunpowder, 237. VI. Steam-engine applied to Pumps, Bellows, Water-engines, Corn-mills, Coining, Barges, Waggons, Flying-chariots, 253. Labours of Hercules. Abyla and Calpe, 297. VII. 1. Electric Machine. Hesperian Dragon. Electric Kiss. Halo round the heads of Saints. Electric Shock. Fairy-rings, 335. 2. Death of Professor Richman, 371. 3. Franklin draws Lightning from the Clouds. Cupid snatches the Thunderbolt from Jupiter, 383. VIII. Phosphoric Acid and Vital Heat produced in the Blood. The great Egg of Night, 399. IX. Western Wind unfettered. Naiad released. Frost assailed. Whale attacked, 421. X. Buds and Flowers expanded by Warmth, Electricity, and Light. Drawings with colourless sympathetic Inks; which appear when warmed by the Fire, 457. XI. Sirius. Jupiter and Semele. Nothern Constellations. Ice-Islands navigated into the Tropic Seas. Rainy Monsoons, 497. XII. Points erected to procure Rain. Elijah on Mount Carmel, 549. Departure of the Nymphs of Fire like Sparks from artificial Fireworks, 587.
Half an Hour
© Jean Valentine
Hurt, hurtful, snake-charmed,
struck white together half an hour we tear
through the half-dark after
Pyrography
© John Ashbery
Out here on Cottage Grove it matters. The galloping
Wind balks at its shadow. The carriages
The Animals
© William Stanley Merwin
All these years behind windows
With blind crosses sweeping the tables
All the Members of My Tribe Are Liars
© John Fuller
Think of a self-effacing missionary
Tending the vices of a problem tribe.
He knows the quickest cure for beri-beri
And how to take a bribe.
The Condemned
© Paul Hamilton Hayne
AS in those lands of mighty mountain heights,
The streams, by sudden tempests overcharged,
Sweep down the slopes, hearing swift ruin with them,
So I and all my fortunes were engulf'd
Salvador Dali
© David Gascoyne
The smooth plain with its mirrors listens to the cliff
Like a basilisk eating flowers.
And the children, lost in the shadows of the catacombs,
Call to the mirrors for help:
'Strong-bow of salt, cutlass of memory,
Write on my map the name of every river.'
Giant Night
© Anne Waldman
Awake in a giant night
is where I am
There is a river where my soul,
hungry as a horse drinks beside me
Electrocuting an Elephant
© Sonia Sanchez
Her handlers, dressed in vests and flannel pants,
Step forward in the weak winter light
Debtor’s Prison Road
© Heather McHugh
tick fitfully, they always have
appointments. Punctual, six-sharp,
they are David's; they have lodged in his
death tent, have stuck in his mud sleep. Bad luck
