DayPoems: A Seven-Century Poetry Slam
93,142 lines of verse * www.daypoems.net
Timothy Bovee, editor
(For my Mother)
How memory cuts away the years,
And how clean the picture comes
Of autumn days, brisk and busy;
Charged with keen sunshine.
And you, stirred with activity;
The spirit of these energetic days.
There was our back-yard,
So plain and stripped of green,
With even the weeds carefully pulled away
From the crooked, red bricks that made the walk,
And the earth on either side so black.
Autumn and dead leaves burning in the sharp air;
And winter comforts coming in like a pageant.
I shall not forget them:
Great jars laden with the raw green of pickles,
Standing in a solemn row across the back of the porch,
Exhaling the pungent dill;
And in the very center of the yard,
You, tending the great catsup kettle of gleaming copper
Where fat, red tomatoes bobbed up and down
Like jolly monks in a drunken dance.
And there were bland banks of cabbages that came by the wagon-load,
Soon to be cut into delicate ribbons
Only to be crushed by the heavy, wooden stompers.
Such feathery whiteness -- to come to kraut!
And after, there were grapes that hid their brightness under a grey dust,
Then gushed thrilling, purple blood over the fire;
And enamelled crab-apples that tricked with their fragrance
But were bitter to taste.
And there were spicy plums and ill-shaped quinces,
And long string beans floating in pans of clear water
Like slim, green fishes.
And there was fish itself,
Salted, silver herring from the city . . .
And you moved among these mysteries,
Absorbed and smiling and sure;
Stirring, tasting, measuring,
With the precision of a ritual.
I like to think of you in your years of power --
You, now so shaken and so powerless --
High priestess of your home.
In flashes of explosion I see
a million billion crackers burst
in desolate dark of the sky.
The punctured sheen of space unfolds
on eternity's chequer board,
mosaics in black and white.
Witness to eerie happenings
in vortexed passivity of cosmic deep
billion trillion cosmoses sleep.
The whirling skies
one above the other,
the star systems galore.
In the infinity of space
spangled heavens
are seen expanding in all directions.
MILD is the parting year, and sweet
The odour of the falling spray;
Life passes on more rudely fleet,
And balmless is its closing day.
I wait its close, I court its gloom,
But mourn that never must there fall
Or on my breast or on my tomb
The tear that would have soothed it all.
WE are the music-makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams;
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.
With wonderful deathless ditties
We build up the world's great cities,
And out of a fabulous story
We fashion an empire's glory:
One man with a dream, at pleasure,
Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
And three with a new song's measure
Can trample an empire down.
We, in the ages lying
In the buried past of the earth,
Built Nineveh with our sighing,
And Babel itself with our mirth;
And o'erthrew them with prophesying
To the old of the new world's worth;
For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth.
TOSSING his mane of snows in wildest eddies and tangles,
Lion-like March cometh in, hoarse, with tempestuous breath,
Through all the moaning chimneys, and 'thwart all the hollows and
angles
Round the shuddering house, threating of winter and death.
But in my heart I feel the life of the wood and the meadow
Thrilling the pulses that own kindred with fibres that lift
Bud and blade to the sunward, within the inscrutable shadow,
Deep in the oak's chill core, under the gathering drift.
Nay, to earth's life in mine some prescience, or dream, or desire
(How shall I name it aright?) comes for a moment and goes--
Rapture of life ineffable, perfect--as if in the brier,
Leafless there by my door, trembled a sense of the rose.
SWEET rois of vertew and of gentilness,
Delytsum lily of everie lustynes,
Richest in bontie and in bewtie clear,
And everie vertew that is wenit dear,
Except onlie that ye are mercyless
Into your garth this day I did persew;
There saw I flowris that fresche were of hew;
Baith quhyte and reid most lusty were to seyne,
And halesome herbis upon stalkis greene;
Yet leaf nor flowr find could I nane of rew.
I doubt that Merche, with his cauld blastis keyne,
Has slain this gentil herb, that I of mene;
Quhois piteous death dois to my heart sic paine
That I would make to plant his root againe,--
So confortand his levis unto me bene.
THE fierce exulting worlds, the motes in rays,
The churlish thistles, scented briers,
The wind-swept bluebells on the sunny braes,
Down to the central fires,
Exist alike in Love. Love is a sea
Filling all the abysses dim
Of lornest space, in whose deeps regally
Suns and their bright broods swim.
This mighty sea of Love, with wondrous tides,
Is sternly just to sun and grain;
'Tis laving at this moment Saturn's sides,
'Tis in my blood and brain.
All things have something more than barren use;
There is a scent upon the brier,
A tremulous splendour in the autumn dews,
Cold morns are fringed with fire.
The clodded earth goes up in sweet-breath'd flowers;
In music dies poor human speech,
And into beauty blow those hearts of ours
When Love is born in each.
Daisies are white upon the churchyard sod,
Sweet tears the clouds lean down and give.
The world is very lovely. O my God,
I thank Thee that I live!
Mine eyes are filled today with old amaze
At mountains, and at meadows deftly strewn
With bits of the gay jewelry of June
And of her splendid vesture; and, agaze,
I stand where Spring her bright brocade of days
Embroidered o'er, and listen to the flow
Of sudden runlets -- the faint blasts they blow,
Low, on their stony bugles, in still ways.
For wonders are at one, confederate yet:
Yea, where the wearied year came to a close,
An odor reminiscent of the rose;
And everywhere her seal has Summer set;
And, as of old, in the horizon-sky,
The sun can find a lovely place to die.
All the heat and the glow and the hush
of the summer afternoon;
the scent of the sweet-briar bush
over bowing grass-blades and broom;
the birds that flit and pass;
singing the song he knows,
the grass-hopper in the grass;
the voice of the she-oak boughs.
Ah, and the shattered column
crowned with the poet's wreath.
Who, who keeps silent and solemn
his passing place beneath?
~This was a poet that loved God's breath;
his life was a passionate quest;
he looked down deep in the wells of death,
and now he is taking his rest.~
WHAT sweet relief the showers to thirsty plants we see,
What dear delight the blooms to bees, my true love is to me!
As fresh and lusty Ver foul Winter doth exceed--
As morning bright, with scarlet sky, doth pass the evening's weed--
As mellow pears above the crabs esteemed be--
So doth my love surmount them all, whom yet I hap to see!
The oak shall olives bear, the lamb the lion fray,
The owl shall match the nightingale in tuning of her lay,
Or I my love let slip out of mine entire heart,
So deep reposed in my breast is she for her desart!
For many blessed gifts, O happy, happy land!
Where Mars and Pallas strive to make their glory most to stand!
Yet, land, more is thy bliss that, in this cruel age,
A Venus' imp thou hast brought forth, so steadfast and so sage.
Among the Muses Nine a tenth if Jove would make,
And to the Graces Three a fourth, her would Apollo take.
Let some for honour hunt, and hoard the massy gold:
With her so I may live and die, my weal cannot be told.
VERSE, a breeze 'mid blossoms straying,
Where Hope clung feeding, like a bee--
Both were mine! Life went a-maying
With Nature, Hope, and Poesy,
When I was young!
When I was young?--Ah, woful When!
Ah! for the change 'twixt Now and Then!
This breathing house not built with hands,
This body that does me grievous wrong,
O'er aery cliffs and glittering sands,
How lightly then it flash'd along--
Like those trim skiffs, unknown of yore,
On winding lakes and rivers wide,
That ask no aid of sail or oar,
That fear no spite of wind or tide!
Naught cared this body for wind or weather
When Youth and I lived in 't together.
Flowers are lovely! Love is flower-like;
Friendship is a sheltering tree;
O the joys, that came down shower-like,
Of Friendship, Love, and Liberty,
Ere I was old!
Ere I was old? Ah, woful Ere,
Which tells me, Youth 's no longer here!
O Youth! for years so many and sweet,
'Tis known that thou and I were one;
I'll think it but a fond conceit--
It cannot be that thou art gone!
Thy vesper-bell hath not yet toll'd--
And thou wert aye a masker bold!
What strange disguise hast now put on,
To make believe that thou art gone?
I see these locks in silvery slips,
This drooping gait, this alter'd size:
But springtide blossoms on thy lips,
And tears take sunshine from thine eyes!
Life is but thought: so think I will
That Youth and I are housemates still.
Dewdrops are the gems of morning,
But the tears of mournful eve!
Where no hope is, life 's a warning
That only serves to make us grieve,
When we are old!
That only serves to make us grieve
With oft and tedious taking-leave,
Like some poor nigh-related guest
That may not rudely be dismist.
Yet hath outstay'd his welcome while,
And tells the jest without the smile.
Snow
Crystal water falls
mesmerizing the eyes
enveloping the mind
Soon it's all around
no sounds can be heard
A train in the distant air
breaks the ice
The flow begins and again
the pour is bountiful and unmerciful
and fills the ground with purified white
untouched by the hands of human kind
A buried soul could rest forever
relishing in the warmth of snow covered eyelashes
the heart could beat forever in dreams
The sun the enemy and yet an old friend
drinks in the beauty and the fear
and fades into the night
Copyright 2002 by Sandy Kay Turmail. All rights reserved.