Family poems
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The Sorcerer: Act I
© William Schwenck Gilbert
For to-day young Alexis-young Alexis Pointdextre
Is betrothed to Aline-to Aline Sangazure,
And that pride of his sex is-of his sex is to be next her
At the feast on the green-on the green, oh, be sure!
The Test of Fantasy
© Joanne Kyger
It unfolds and ripples like a banner, downward. All the stories
come folding out. The smells and flowers begin to come back, as
the tapestry is brightly colored and brocaded. Rabbits and violets.
Bird Parliament (translation of)
© Edward Fitzgerald
And first, with Heart so full as from his Eyes
Ran weeping, up rose Tajidar the Wise;
The mystic Mark upon whose Bosom show'd
That He alone of all the Birds THE ROAD
Had travell'd: and the Crown upon his Head
Had reach'd the Goal; and He stood forth and said:
Reading the Bible Backwards
© Hugo Williams
All around the altar, huge lianas
curled, unfurled the dark green
Family Love
© Amado Ruiz de Nervo
I adore my dear mother,
I adore my dear father too;
No one loves me as much
As they know how to love me.
The Broken Crutch: A Tale
© Robert Bloomfield
A burst of laughter rang throughout the hall,
And Peggy's tongue, though overborne by all,
Pour'd its warm blessings, for, without control
The sweet unbridled transport of her soul
Was obviously seen, till Herbert's kiss
Stole, as it were, the eloquence of bliss.
Cold Calls: War Music, Continued
© Christopher Logue
Take Quinamid
The son of a Dardanian astrologer
Who disregarded what his father said
And came to Troy in a taxi.
Drought And Doctrine.
© James Brunton Stephens
COME, take the tenner, doctor . . . yes, I know the bill says "five,"
But it ain't as if you'd merely kep' our little 'un alive;
The Unthinkable
© Simon Armitage
A huge purple door washed up in the bay overnight,
its paintwork blistered and peeled from weeks at sea.
Billet-Doux
© Georg Trakl
For S. S.
She reads by the light of a guttering candle
and likes the feel of each page's gilt edge
as she lifts it slightly at the corner, readying
To the Memory of My Beloved the Author, Mr. William Shakespeare
© Benjamin Jonson
To draw no envy, Shakespeare, on thy name,
Am I thus ample to thy book and fame;
Lancelot And Elaine
© Alfred Tennyson
How came the lily maid by that good shield
Of Lancelot, she that knew not even his name?
He left it with her, when he rode to tilt
For the great diamond in the diamond jousts,
Which Arthur had ordained, and by that name
Had named them, since a diamond was the prize.
Paradise Lost : Book X.
© John Milton
Mean while the heinous and despiteful act
Of Satan, done in Paradise; and how
Song of Social Despair
© Marvin Bell
Ethics without faith, excuse me,
is the butter and not the bread.
You can’t nourish them all, the dead
pile up at the hospital doors.
And even they are not so numerous
as the mothers come in maternity.
Summer Evening
© Eamon Grennan
A spear of zinc light wounds stone and water,
stripping the scarlet fuchsia bells and yellow buttercups
