Headpiece Filled With Straw

Parsley

Chris Boese — 2011-03-02T11:28:06-05:00

by Rita Dove 1. The Cane Fields There is a parrot imitating spring in the palace, its feathers parsley green. Out of the swamp the cane appears to haunt us, and we cut it down. El General searches for a word; he is all the world there is. Like a parrot imitating spring, we lie down screaming as rain punches through and we come up green. We cannot speak an R— out of the swamp, the cane appears and then the mountain we call in whispers Katalina. The children gnaw their teeth to arrowheads. There is a parrot imitating spring....

The Player Piano

Chris Boese — 2011-01-19T23:07:13-05:00

By Randall Jarrell I ate pancakes one night in a Pancake House Run by a lady my age. She was gay. When I told her that I came from Pasadena She laughed and said, "I lived in Pasadena When Fatty Arbuckle drove the El Molino bus." I felt that I had met someone from home. No, not Pasadena, Fatty Arbuckle. Who's that? Oh, something that we had in common Like -- like -- the false armistice. Piano rolls. She told me her house was the first Pancake House East of the Mississippi, and I showed her A picture of my...

Sumer Is Icumen In

Chris Boese — 2010-06-07T10:55:06-04:00

Middle English Sumer is icumen in, Lhude sing cuccu! Groweþ sed and bloweþ med And springþ þe wde nu, Sing cuccu! Awe bleteþ after lomb, Lhouþ after calue cu. Bulluc sterteþ, bucke uerteþ, Murie sing cuccu! Cuccu, cuccu, wel þu singes cuccu; Ne swik þu nauer nu. Pes: Sing cuccu nu. Sing cuccu. Sing cuccu. Sing cuccu nu! Modern English Summer has come in, Loudly sing, Cuckoo! The seed grows and the meadow blooms And the wood springs anew, Sing, Cuckoo! The ewe bleats after the lamb The cow lows after the calf. The bullock stirs, the stag farts, Merrily...

A Noiseless, Patient Spider

Chris Boese — 2010-05-09T09:43:26-04:00

By Walt Whitman A noiseless, patient spider, I mark'd, where, on a little promontory, it stood, isolated; Mark'd how, to explore the vacant, vast surrounding, It launch'd forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself; Ever unreeling them--ever tirelessly speeding them. And you, O my Soul, where you stand, Surrounded, surrounded, in measureless oceans of space, Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing,--seeking the spheres, to connect them; Till the bridge you will need, be form'd--till the ductile anchor hold; Till the gossamer thread you fling, catch somewhere, O my Soul. Link: Twitlonger: A Noiseless, Patient Spider by Walt Whitman

This Was Once a Love Poem

Chris Boese — 2010-04-29T23:31:50-04:00

by Jane Hirshfield This was once a love poem, before its haunches thickened, its breath grew short, before it found itself sitting, perplexed and a little embarrassed, on the fender of a parked car, while many people passed by without turning their heads. It remembers itself dressing as if for a great engagement. It remembers choosing these shoes, this scarf or tie. Once, it drank beer for breakfast, drifted its feet in a river side by side with the feet of another. Once it pretended shyness, then grew truly shy, dropping its head so the hair would fall forward, so...

The Black Swan

Chris Boese — 2010-04-18T09:39:50-04:00

by Randall Jarrell When the swans turned my sister into a swan I would go to the lake, at night, from milking: The sun would look out through the reeds like a swan, A swan's red beak; and the beak would open And inside there was darkness, the stars and the moon. Out on the lake, a girl would laugh. "Sister, here is your porridge, sister," I would call; and the reeds would whisper, "Go to sleep, go to sleep, little swan." My legs were all hard and webbed, and the silky Hairs of my wings sank away like stars...

Sleeping Out at Easter

Chris Boese — 2010-04-04T06:00:00-04:00

By James Dickey All dark is now no more. The forest is drawing a light. All Presences change into trees. One eye opens slowly without me. My sight is the same as the sun’s, For this is the grave of the king, When the earth turns, waking a choir. All dark is now no more. Birds speak, their voices beyond them. A light has told them their song. My animal eyes become human As the Word rises out of the darkness Where my right hand, buried beneath me, Hoveringly tingles, with grasping The source of all song at the root....

My Life had stood - a Loaded Gun -

Chris Boese — 2010-03-21T16:27:25-04:00

By Emily Dickinson My Life had stood - a Loaded Gun - In Corners - till a Day The Owner passed - identified - And carried Me away - And now We roam in Sovereign Woods - And now We hunt the Doe - And every time I speak for Him - The Mountains straight reply - And do I smile, such cordial light Upon the Valley glow - It is as a Vesuvian face Had let its pleasure through - And when at Night - Our good Day done - I guard My Master's Head - 'Tis better than...

Advice to writers

Chris Boese — 2010-03-04T13:37:21-05:00

By Billy Collins Even if it keeps you up all night, wash down the walls and scrub the floor of your study before composing a syllable. Clean the place as if the Pope were on his way. Spotlessness is the niece of inspiration. The more you clean, the more brilliant your writing will be, so do not hesitate to take to the open fields to scour the undersides of rocks or swab in the dark forest upper branches, nests full of eggs. When you find your way back home and stow the sponges and brushes under the sink, you will...

Something Ezra Pound once said

Chris Boese — 2010-02-23T17:34:36-05:00

"A Retrospect" and "A Few Don'ts" by Ezra Pound : Poetics Essay : Learning Lab : The Poetry Foundation. So I don't often put too much stock in the unnecessary complications for poetry introduced by this crazy old anti-Semite, but today was just needing to read this bit, and in reading it, wanted to excerpt some bits of it that spoke to me again, many years after first encountering the ideas. Ach. Does he really think poetry advances like colonialist scholarship, "advancing" from the known and building "new knowledge," new poetry, without any redundancy to the poetry that has gone...

The Second Coming

Chris Boese — 2010-01-16T17:17:20-05:00

By William Butler Yeats Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert A shape with lion body...

The Force That Through The Green Fuse Drives The Flower

Chris Boese — 2010-01-15T17:45:19-05:00

by Dylan Thomas The force that through the green fuse drives the flower Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees Is my destroyer. And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose My youth is bent by the same wintry fever. The force that drives the water through the rocks Drives my red blood; that dries the mouthing streams Turns mine to wax. And I am dumb to mouth unto my veins How at the mountain spring the same mouth sucks. The hand that whirls the water in the pool Stirs the quicksand; that ropes the blowing...

The Blessing of the Old Woman, the Tulip, and the Dog

Chris Boese — 2009-12-26T14:09:20-05:00

by Alicia Suskin Ostriker To be blessed said the old woman is to live and work so hard God's love washes right through you like milk through a cow To be blessed said the dark red tulip is to knock their eyes out with the slug of lust implied by your up-ended skirt To be blessed said the dog is to have a pinch of God inside you and all the other dogs can smell it "The Blessing of the Old Woman, the Tulip, and the Dog" by Alicia Suskin Ostriker, from The Book of Seventy. © University of Pittsburgh...

He fumbles at your soul

Chris Boese — 2009-11-27T23:10:49-05:00

By Emily Dickinson He fumbles at your Soul As Players at the Keys Before they drop full Music on -- He stuns you by degrees -- Prepares your brittle Nature For the Ethereal Blow By fainter Hammers -- further heard -- Then nearer -- Then so slow Your Breath has time to straighten -- Your Brain -- to bubble Cool -- Deals -- One -- imperial -- Thunderbolt -- That scalps your naked Soul -- When Winds take Forests in the Paws -- The Universe -- is still -- Link: He fumbles at your spirit

Ozymandius

Chris Boese — 2009-11-23T21:35:54-05:00

by Percy Bysshe Shelley I met a traveler from an antique land Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert... Near them, on the sand, Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed; And on the pedestal these words appear: My name is Ozymandius, King of Kings, Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains. Round the decay...