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It Is Like The Whole World is Opening Up Again

It is like
The whole world is opening up again
The birth of a grandchild
A grandfather is born too.

poem by Shalom Freedman
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In the next birth

IF I ACQUIRED the menacing form of an
alligator in the next birth,
I would want you to cling tightly to my persona as my serrated green
skin.

If I was born in the ominous form of the jungle tiger in the
next birth,
I would you to be incorporated in my body as my domineeringly
authoritative growl.

If I was born as a densely foliated tree in the next birth,
I would want you to be the perennial leaves that emanated from
my silhouette.

If I was born as an opalescent fish in the next birth,
I would want you to be saline water in which I could sustain life
and swim.

If I was born as the twin horned sacrosanct cow in the next birth,
I would inevitably desire you as the milk I would diffuse from
my flaccid teats.

If I was born as a slithering reptile in the next birth,
I would want you to be the lethal venom I possessed in my triangular
fangs.

If I was born as an obnoxious donkey in the next birth,
I would want you to be my hooves which swished indiscriminately
at innocuous trespassers.

If I was born as perpetually blind in the next birth,
I would indispensably want you to be my eyes to guide me
towards dazzling light.

If I was born as being disdainfully maim; bereft of feet in the next
birth,
I would incorrigibly want you to be my legs to ecstatically leap
in times of jubilation.

If I was born as a rustic spider with a battalion of arms in the
next birth,

[...] Read more

poem by Nikhil Parekh
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Grandfather Squeers

'My grandfather Squeers,' said The Raggedy Man,
As he solemnly lighted his pipe and began--

'The most indestructible man, for his years,
And the grandest on earth, was my grandfather Squeers!

'He said, when he rounded his three-score-and-ten,
'I've the hang of it now and can do it again!'

'He had frozen his heels so repeatedly, he
Could tell by them just what the weather would be;

'And would laugh and declare, 'while the _Almanac_ would
Most falsely prognosticate, _he_ never could!'

'Such a hale constitution had grandfather Squeers
That, 'though he'd used '_navy_' for sixty odd years,

'He still chewed a dime's-worth six days of the week,
While the seventh he passed with a chew in each cheek:

'Then my grandfather Squeers had a singular knack
Of sitting around on the small of his back,

'With his legs like a letter Y stretched o'er the grate
Wherein 'twas his custom to ex-pec-tor-ate.

'He was fond of tobacco in _manifold_ ways,
And would sit on the door-step, of sunshiny days,

'And smoke leaf-tobacco he'd raised strictly for
The pipe he'd used all through The Mexican War.'

And The Raggedy Man said, refilling the bowl
Of his own pipe and leisurely picking a coal

From the stove with his finger and thumb, 'You can see
What a tee-nacious habit he's fastened on me!

'And my grandfather Squeers took a special delight
In pruning his corns every Saturday night

'With a horn-handled razor, whose edge he excused
By saying 'twas one that his grandfather used;

'And, though deeply etched in the haft of the same
Was the ever-euphonious Wostenholm's name,

''Twas my grandfather's custom to boast of the blade
As 'A Seth Thomas razor--the best ever made!'

[...] Read more

poem by James Whitcomb Riley
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The Columbiad: Book IX

The Argument

Vision suspended. Night scene, as contemplated from the mount of vision. Columbus inquires the reason of the slow progress of science, and its frequent interruptions. Hesper answers, that all things in the physical as well as the moral and intellectual world are progressive in like manner. He traces their progress from the birth of the universe to the present state of the earth and its inhabitants; asserts the future advancement of society, till perpetual peace shall be established. Columbus proposes his doubts; alleges in support of them the successive rise and downfal of ancient nations; and infers future and periodical convulsions. Hesper, in answer, exhibits the great distinction between the ancient and modern state of the arts and of society. Crusades. Commerce. Hanseatic League. Copernicus. Kepler. Newton, Galileo. Herschel. Descartes. Bacon. Printing Press. Magnetic Needle. Geographical discoveries. Federal system in America. A similar system to be extended over the whole earth. Columbus desires a view of this.

But now had Hesper from the Hero's sight
Veil'd the vast world with sudden shades of night.
Earth, sea and heaven, where'er he turns his eye,
Arch out immense, like one surrounding sky
Lamp'd with reverberant fires. The starry train
Paint their fresh forms beneath the placid main;
Fair Cynthia here her face reflected laves,
Bright Venus gilds again her natal waves,
The Bear redoubling foams with fiery joles,
And two dire dragons twine two arctic poles.
Lights o'er the land, from cities lost in shade,
New constellations, new galaxies spread,
And each high pharos double flames provides,
One from its fires, one fainter from the tides.

Centred sublime in this bivaulted sphere,
On all sides void, unbounded, calm and clear,
Soft o'er the Pair a lambent lustre plays,
Their seat still cheering with concentred rays;
To converse grave the soothing shades invite.
And on his Guide Columbus fixt his sight:
Kind messenger of heaven, he thus began,
Why this progressive laboring search of man?
If men by slow degrees have power to reach
These opening truths that long dim ages teach,
If, school'd in woes and tortured on to thought,
Passion absorbing what experience taught,
Still thro the devious painful paths they wind,
And to sound wisdom lead at last the mind,
Why did not bounteous nature, at their birth,
Give all their science to these sons of earth,
Pour on their reasoning powers pellucid day,
Their arts, their interests clear as light display?
That error, madness and sectarian strife
Might find no place to havock human life.

To whom the guardian Power: To thee is given
To hold high converse and inquire of heaven,
To mark untraversed ages, and to trace
Whate'er improves and what impedes thy race.
Know then, progressive are the paths we go
In worlds above thee, as in thine below
Nature herself (whose grasp of time and place
Deals out duration and impalms all space)

[...] Read more

poem by Joel Barlow
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Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau, Saviour of Society

Epigraph

Υδραν φονεύσας, μυρίων τ᾽ ἄλλων πόνων
διῆλθον ἀγέλας . . .
τὸ λοίσθιον δὲ τόνδ᾽ ἔτλην τάλας πόνον,
. . . δῶμα θριγκῶσαι κακοῖς.

I slew the Hydra, and from labour pass'd
To labour — tribes of labours! Till, at last,
Attempting one more labour, in a trice,
Alack, with ills I crowned the edifice.

You have seen better days, dear? So have I —
And worse too, for they brought no such bud-mouth
As yours to lisp "You wish you knew me!" Well,
Wise men, 't is said, have sometimes wished the same,
And wished and had their trouble for their pains.
Suppose my Œdipus should lurk at last
Under a pork-pie hat and crinoline,
And, latish, pounce on Sphynx in Leicester Square?
Or likelier, what if Sphynx in wise old age,
Grown sick of snapping foolish people's heads,
And jealous for her riddle's proper rede, —
Jealous that the good trick which served the turn
Have justice rendered it, nor class one day
With friend Home's stilts and tongs and medium-ware,—
What if the once redoubted Sphynx, I say,
(Because night draws on, and the sands increase,
And desert-whispers grow a prophecy)
Tell all to Corinth of her own accord.
Bright Corinth, not dull Thebes, for Lais' sake,
Who finds me hardly grey, and likes my nose,
And thinks a man of sixty at the prime?
Good! It shall be! Revealment of myself!
But listen, for we must co-operate;
I don't drink tea: permit me the cigar!
First, how to make the matter plain, of course —
What was the law by which I lived. Let 's see:
Ay, we must take one instant of my life
Spent sitting by your side in this neat room:
Watch well the way I use it, and don't laugh!
Here's paper on the table, pen and ink:
Give me the soiled bit — not the pretty rose!
See! having sat an hour, I'm rested now,
Therefore want work: and spy no better work
For eye and hand and mind that guides them both,
During this instant, than to draw my pen
From blot One — thus — up, up to blot Two — thus —
Which I at last reach, thus, and here's my line
Five inches long and tolerably straight:

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning (1871)
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Out of the…is Born a …

Out of the mire is born a gorgeous flower;
Out of the noise is born a dead silence;
Out of the storm is born, calm!

Out of the strife is born a pleasant life;
Out of the filth is born flora, fauna;
Out of the chaos is born clarity.

Out of the exercise is born a healthy body;
Out of the training is born wisdom;
Out of the learning is born a scholar!

Out of the confession is born a soul afilled with grace;
Out of the Holy Book is born the word of God;
Out of the prayers is born answers from God!

Out of the rain is born the verdure shoots;
Out of the sun is born the growing plants;
Out of the dawn is born a lovely day;
Out of the dusk is born a quiet night!

Out of the hunger is born an appetite;
Out of the dainty food is born satiety;
Out of the wine is born inebriety.

Out of the fasting is born controlled senses;
Out of the inhibition is born a civilized person;
Out of the nature’s furies is born forbearance;
Out of the war is born a newer peace.

Out of the mistakes done is born a new resolve;
Out of the struggle is born a long-lasting freedom;
Out of the perseverance is born an accomplishment.

Out of the light is born a new day on earth;
Out of the night is born a starry sky;
Out of the dark clouds is born an aureole moon.

Out of the boredom is born a life of joy;
Out of the trials, travail is born a mind of steel;
Out of the woes is born a content heart!

Out of the parent’s love is born a loving child;
Out of the love of God is born forgiveness of sins;
Out of the mercy of God is born a soul for heaven!

poem by John Celes
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Grandfather Bridgeman

I

'Heigh, boys!' cried Grandfather Bridgeman, 'it's time before dinner to-day.'
He lifted the crumpled letter, and thumped a surprising 'Hurrah!'
Up jumped all the echoing young ones, but John, with the starch in his throat,
Said, 'Father, before we make noises, let's see the contents of the note.'
The old man glared at him harshly, and twinkling made answer: 'Too bad!
John Bridgeman, I'm always the whisky, and you are the water, my lad!'

II

But soon it was known thro' the house, and the house ran over for joy,
That news, good news, great marvels, had come from the soldier boy;
Young Tom, the luckless scapegrace, offshoot of Methodist John;
His grandfather's evening tale, whom the old man hailed as his son.
And the old man's shout of pride was a shout of his victory, too;
For he called his affection a method: the neighbours' opinions he knew.

III

Meantime, from the morning table removing the stout breakfast cheer,
The drink of the three generations, the milk, the tea, and the beer
(Alone in its generous reading of pints stood the Grandfather's jug),
The women for sight of the missive came pressing to coax and to hug.
He scattered them quick, with a buss and a smack; thereupon he began
Diversions with John's little Sarah: on Sunday, the naughty old man!

IV

Then messengers sped to the maltster, the auctioneer, miller, and all
The seven sons of the farmer who housed in the range of his call.
Likewise the married daughters, three plentiful ladies, prime cooks,
Who bowed to him while they condemned, in meek hope to stand high in his books.
'John's wife is a fool at a pudding,' they said, and the light carts up hill
Went merrily, flouting the Sabbath: for puddings well made mend a will.

V

The day was a van-bird of summer: the robin still piped, but the blue,
As a warm and dreamy palace with voices of larks ringing thro',
Looked down as if wistfully eyeing the blossoms that fell from its lap:
A day to sweeten the juices: a day to quicken the sap.
All round the shadowy orchard sloped meadows in gold, and the dear
Shy violets breathed their hearts out: the maiden breath of the year!

VI

Full time there was before dinner to bring fifteen of his blood,
To sit at the old man's table: they found that the dinner was good.
But who was she by the lilacs and pouring laburnums concealed,

[...] Read more

poem by George Meredith
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This Is No Fish Story

We had been up and down Redwood Creek
For what seemed to me to be all day
Watching my grandfather fish for salmon
We started at the mouth of the river

Hiked over sand rocks and slippery green moss
The only reason I was there was
The fried chicken and potato salad
My grandmother made the night before

Lunch seemed so far away
My grandfather was out of sight
He had worked his way upstream
When we heard him yell 'FISH ON! '

My grandmother who had been hanging back with me
Left me in the sand
I had to move fast to catch up
Moving around large pieces of driftwood

He had certainly hooked something
His rod bending if half then straightening
As he let line out
With the reel's drag on

I knew how to fish
I just didn't like to
I had no patience
I wasn't like bird hunting

If I got bored bird hunting
When I was by myself
With just my dog
I could take a shot anyway

Just for practice
To get the dog used to the noise
Because I had no patience
At the age of twelve

I had never seen so much line out before
He kept backing further up the wide beach
It looked to me as if the fish knew the way
And was headed back to the ocean

Hook in his mouth
My guess was he was no longer
In the mood for spawning
He had my grandfather on

[...] Read more

poem by Tom J. Mariani
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Vision Of Columbus - Book 1

Long had the Sage, the first who dared to brave
The unknown dangers of the western wave,
Who taught mankind where future empires lay
In these fair confines of descending day,
With cares o'erwhelm'd, in life's distressing gloom,
Wish'd from a thankless world a peaceful tomb;
While kings and nations, envious of his name,
Enjoy'd his toils and triumph'd o'er his fame,
And gave the chief, from promised empire hurl'd,
Chains for a crown, a prison for a world.
Now night and silence held their lonely reign,
The half-orb'd moon declining to the main;
Descending clouds, o'er varying ether driven,
Obscured the stars and shut the eye from heaven;
Cold mists through opening grates the cell invade,
And deathlike terrors haunt the midnight shade;
When from a visionary, short repose,
That raised new cares and temper'd keener woes,
Columbus woke, and to the walls address'd
The deep-felt sorrows of his manly breast.

Here lies the purchase, here the wretched spoil,
Of painful years and persevering toil:
For these dread walks, this hideous haunt of pain,
I traced new regions o'er the pathless main,
Dared all the dangers of the dreary wave,
Hung o'er its clefts and topp'd the surging grave,
Saw billowy seas, in swelling mountains roll,
And bursting thunders rock the reddening pole,
Death rear his front in every dreadful form,
Gape from beneath and blacken in the storm;
Till, tost far onward to the skirts of day,
Where milder suns dispens'd a smiling ray,
Through brighter skies my happier sails descry'd
The golden banks that bound the western tide,
And gave the admiring world that bounteous shore
Their wealth to nations and to kings their power

Oh land of transport! dear, delusive coast,
To these fond, aged eyes forever lost!
No more thy gladdening vales I travel o'er,
For me thy mountains rear the head no more,
For me thy rocks no sparkling gems unfold,
Or streams luxuriant wear their paths in gold;
From realms of promised peace forever borne,
I hail dread anguish, and in secret mourn

But dangers past, fair climes explored in vain,
And foes triumphant shew but half my pain
Dissembling friends, each earlier joy who gave,

[...] Read more

poem by Joel Barlow
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Death and Birth

Death leads to birth rather than birth, to death.
Birth is close to death and not vice versa.
Every birth is at the result of a death.
Death to birth, not birth to death, is the path.

The death of clay is the birth of a pot;
The death of the pot is the birth of clay.
Ice melts to water and water forms ice.
In each conversion, occur death and birth.

The death of a night is the birth of a day;
The death of a day is the birth of a night.
New Year means the death of the old year too.
In each transition, takes place death and birth.

The death of a seed is the birth of a plant;
The death of gametes is the birth of an embryo.
Salts die to form cells; cells die to form salts.
In each growth, form death and birth of matter.

The so called death and birth is nothing but
Deaths and births of forms made of matter.
The matter itself does not die to be born
But is converted to different forms.

Elements disappear to form plants.
Plants as food add to the animals’ flesh.
Plants and animals on death liberate
As elements, serving through worms and germs.

When a child is born, there’s no birth of life.
The embryo transforms into a child.
When a man dies, there is no death of life.
The body disintegrates to salts.

Matter, energy and life have no death
They have got one birth since when they’ve been.
They interact and come different stages
In which the pattern is death and birth.

poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
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Life gives birth to happiness

Clouds give birth to tantalizing droplets of rain;
pacifying the murderous agony of scorching desert
sands,
Rose gives birth to stupendously ravishing fragrance;
casting a spell of unconquerable happiness in those
lives; deluged with horrendous despair,
Sun gives birth to magnificently flamboyant rays;
filtering a path of profuse optimism in every space;
tottering towards helpless extinction,
Soil gives birth to rhapsodic fountains of fruit and
water; ensuring that none remained disastrously
famished; for centuries immemorial,
Ocean gives birth to tantalizingly tangy globules of
salt; inundating drab existence with cloudbursts of
spice and insurmountable poignancy,
Stars give birth to an incredulously serene calm;
miraculously metamorphosing the complexion of the
ghastly night; into one shimmering with milky pearls,
Leaves give birth to exuberantly fluttering breeze;
enveloping dreary souls in its ebulliently vociferous
swirl; as it merrily whipped by,
Benevolence gives birth to invincible humanity;
incessantly reigning as the supreme leader; even as
the planet entangled in webs of lechery and salacious
malice,
Freedom gives birth to the innermost expression; the
mesmerizing fulmination of a persons senses; which
propels him to blissfully lead an infinite more lives,
Mother gives birth to the perpetually divine; the
immaculately wailing offspring for which; God’s
specially descended down from fathomless cosmos to
bless,
Truth gives birth to harmonious unity; organisms from
all across the unfathomable planet; embracing each
other irrespective of prejudice; caste or creed,
Honesty gives birth to intransigent conviction; an
astronomical within the most feeble of entities; to
catapult to the pinnacle of ultimate success,
Fantasy gives birth to turbulently seductive desire;
relentlessly exploring and absorbing the unsurpassable
beauty lingering on this planet,
Perseverance gives birth to glorious rays of newness;
evolving and achieving even the most inconspicuous of
your philanthropic dream; as golden perspiration
trickled under the sweltering Sun,
Faith gives birth to the incomprehensibly
unbelievable; with man successfully shooting to the
summit of the impossible; uttering the name of the
entity he adored,
Conscience gives birth to irrefutable righteousness;

[...] Read more

poem by Nikhil Parekh
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Your child your pride, Your grandchild your guide

True
Our children are our pride
They give you
Immense pleasure
With their glowing innocence

And
Such newly discovered expressions
Which you have not experienced earlier
Their growth
Is always showering on you
A sense of satisfaction

Their intelligence
Is always rated by you
To be much higher than
What you possesed in your childhood

Their observations are
Special to you
And you waste not time
In executing corrective or preventive actions
To satisfy their needs
And you do that all with great pleasure

There comes a gap
As they mature
And you are relieved to see
A new childhood again
When your grandchild comes in your life

You see a still higher degree
Of innocence
And intelligence in this generation

You feel your grandchild
Has much greater potential
To achieve than
Your own child, leave alone
The very your own self

As you have gained
Some more maturity
Than what you had when you reared your child
And have crossed
Hurdles with deeper troubles
Your association with the new arrival
Gives you more pleasure
Than what you had with your child

[...] Read more

poem by Bashyam Narayanan
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Just listening to my beats

She hadn’t given me birth from her womb; but could
still irrefutably gauge the profound sadness
enshrouding my countenance; by just ethereally
glimpsing at my shielding eyelashes,

She hadn’t given me birth from her womb; but could
still irrefutably prognosticate the hunger in my
stomach; by just sighting me restlessly gnawing at my
bohemian nails,

She hadn’t given me birth from her womb; but could
still irrefutably sense the maniacal desperation in my
trembling visage; by just the infinitesimally changed
tone; in the nimble cadence of my voice,

She hadn’t given me birth from her womb; but could
still irrefutably comprehend the wave of bizarre
mortification enveloping my soul; by just the
capricious tinge of poignant scarlet; on my
impoverished cheeks,

She hadn’t given me birth from her womb; but could
still irrefutably narrate the experiences of my day;
by just feeling the transiently cringed lines; on my
diminutively frazzled forehead,

She hadn’t given me birth from her womb; but could
still irrefutably guess the thunderbolts of tumultuous
anger encapsulating my blood; by just witnessing that
inconspicuous iota of frantic vacillation in my
dwindling stride,
She hadn’t given me birth from her womb; but could
still irrefutably feel the insatiably nostalgic child
in me; by just gently caressing my innocuously
vivacious lips,

She hadn’t given me birth from her womb; but could
still irrefutably soliloquize the first day of my
birth; by just kissing my rampantly fluttering and
daintily gorgeous eyelashes,

She hadn’t given me birth from her womb; but could
still irrefutably understand the diabolically
obsessive agony in my life; by just sighting the
augmented redness in the interiors of my palm; and
withering body skin,

She hadn’t give me birth from her womb; but could
still irrefutably analyze the state of intriguingly
inexplicable mind; by just staring for mock seconds;

[...] Read more

poem by Nikhil Parekh
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Born To Be Loved By You

Borne again.
Because have you at just being borne again.
At last I feel that Im alive and more.
This is the moment Ive waited for.
Born to be loved by you.born to be loved by you.
Born to walk with you.born to talk with you.
I was born for you.
Born to be with you, only you.
Born to be loved by you.
Born for you, born for you baby.
Born for you, born for you baby.
Born for you, born to be loved by you
(you and only you) born to be with only you.
I look at you and all at once I know that dreams come true.
For there you are the other part of me.
I have found my destiny.
Born to be loved by you.born to be loved by you.
Right or wrong for you.weak or strong for you.
Faithful or untrue
Born chained forever and far beyond.
Born to be loved by you and only you
No one else will do.
Heart and soul,born to be loved
Born to be loved.born to be loved by you.
(you and only you,born to be with only you)
Born for you.born for you baby.
Born for you.born for you baby.
Born for you, born for you baby..

song performed by Roy Orbison
Added by Lucian Velea
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Satan Absolved

(In the antechamber of Heaven. Satan walks alone. Angels in groups conversing.)
Satan. To--day is the Lord's ``day.'' Once more on His good pleasure
I, the Heresiarch, wait and pace these halls at leisure
Among the Orthodox, the unfallen Sons of God.
How sweet in truth Heaven is, its floors of sandal wood,
Its old--world furniture, its linen long in press,
Its incense, mummeries, flowers, its scent of holiness!
Each house has its own smell. The smell of Heaven to me
Intoxicates and haunts,--and hurts. Who would not be
God's liveried servant here, the slave of His behest,
Rather than reign outside? I like good things the best,
Fair things, things innocent; and gladly, if He willed,
Would enter His Saints' kingdom--even as a little child.

[Laughs. I have come to make my peace, to crave a full amaun,
Peace, pardon, reconcilement, truce to our daggers--drawn,
Which have so long distraught the fair wise Universe,
An end to my rebellion and the mortal curse
Of always evil--doing. He will mayhap agree
I was less wholly wrong about Humanity
The day I dared to warn His wisdom of that flaw.
It was at least the truth, the whole truth, I foresaw
When He must needs create that simian ``in His own
Image and likeness.'' Faugh! the unseemly carrion!
I claim a new revision and with proofs in hand,
No Job now in my path to foil me and withstand.
Oh, I will serve Him well!
[Certain Angels approach. But who are these that come
With their grieved faces pale and eyes of martyrdom?
Not our good Sons of God? They stop, gesticulate,
Argue apart, some weep,--weep, here within Heaven's gate!
Sob almost in God's sight! ay, real salt human tears,
Such as no Spirit wept these thrice three thousand years.
The last shed were my own, that night of reprobation
When I unsheathed my sword and headed the lost nation.
Since then not one of them has spoken above his breath
Or whispered in these courts one word of life or death
Displeasing to the Lord. No Seraph of them all,
Save I this day each year, has dared to cross Heaven's hall
And give voice to ill news, an unwelcome truth to Him.
Not Michael's self hath dared, prince of the Seraphim.
Yet all now wail aloud.--What ails ye, brethren? Speak!
Are ye too in rebellion? Angels. Satan, no. But weak
With our long earthly toil, the unthankful care of Man.

Satan. Ye have in truth good cause.

Angels. And we would know God's plan,
His true thought for the world, the wherefore and the why
Of His long patience mocked, His name in jeopardy.

[...] Read more

poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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VII. Pompilia

I am just seventeen years and five months old,
And, if I lived one day more, three full weeks;
'T is writ so in the church's register,
Lorenzo in Lucina, all my names
At length, so many names for one poor child,
—Francesca Camilla Vittoria Angela
Pompilia Comparini,—laughable!
Also 't is writ that I was married there
Four years ago: and they will add, I hope,
When they insert my death, a word or two,—
Omitting all about the mode of death,—
This, in its place, this which one cares to know,
That I had been a mother of a son
Exactly two weeks. It will be through grace
O' the Curate, not through any claim I have;
Because the boy was born at, so baptized
Close to, the Villa, in the proper church:
A pretty church, I say no word against,
Yet stranger-like,—while this Lorenzo seems
My own particular place, I always say.
I used to wonder, when I stood scarce high
As the bed here, what the marble lion meant,
With half his body rushing from the wall,
Eating the figure of a prostrate man—
(To the right, it is, of entry by the door)
An ominous sign to one baptized like me,
Married, and to be buried there, I hope.
And they should add, to have my life complete,
He is a boy and Gaetan by name—
Gaetano, for a reason,—if the friar
Don Celestine will ask this grace for me
Of Curate Ottoboni: he it was
Baptized me: he remembers my whole life
As I do his grey hair.

All these few things
I know are true,—will you remember them?
Because time flies. The surgeon cared for me,
To count my wounds,—twenty-two dagger-wounds,
Five deadly, but I do not suffer much—
Or too much pain,—and am to die to-night.

Oh how good God is that my babe was born,
—Better than born, baptized and hid away
Before this happened, safe from being hurt!
That had been sin God could not well forgive:
He was too young to smile and save himself.
When they took two days after he was born,
My babe away from me to be baptized
And hidden awhile, for fear his foe should find,—

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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As Life Was Five

Portate bien,
behave yourself you always said to me.
I behaved myself
when others were warm in winter
and I stood out in the cold.
I behaved myself when others had full plates
and I stared at them hungrily,
never speaking out of turn,
existing in a shell of good white behavior
with my heart a wet-feathered
bird growing but never able to crack out of the shell.
Behaving like a good boy,
my behavior shattered
by outsiders who came
to my village one day
insulting my grandpa because he couldn't speak
English
English-
the invader's sword
the oppressor's language-
that hurled me into profound despair
that day Grandpa and I walked into the farm office
for a loan and this man didn't give my grandpa
an application because he was stupid, he said,
because he was ignorant and inferior,
and that moment
cut me in two torturous pieces
screaming my grandpa was a lovely man
that this government farm office clerk was a rude beast-
and I saw my grandpa's eyes go dark
with wound-hurts, regret, remorse
that his grandchild would witness
him humiliated
and the apricot tree in his soul
was buried
was cut down
using English language as an ax,
and he hung from that dead tree
like a noosed-up Mexican
racist vigilante strung up ten years earlier
for no other reason than that he was different,
than that they didn't understand
his sacred soul, his loving heart,
his prayers and his songs,
Your words, Portate bien,
resonate in me,
and I obey in my integrity, my kindness, my courage,
as I am born again in the suffering of my people,
in our freedom, our beauty, our dual-faced,
dual-cultured, two-songed soul

[...] Read more

poem by Jimmy Santiago Baca
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Jesse James

(neil morris)
I'll tell you about jesse and frank james
My grandfather was personally acquainted with them
My grandfather lived in the southern edge of baxter county, arkansas
And they stayed all night with him lots of nights
And my grandfather told me there was a lot of those robberies that was layed to jesse and frank james
And he knew they didn't do it 'cause they was at his place when it happened
But you couldn't tell the public that
When they get their minds made up that somebody's done something
Why the public's gonna stick to it anyway
My grandfather, he knew them as boys
And they could come to his place and go without anybody paying attention 'cause nobody expected them
Down in arkansas, see, 'cause they was from missouri
Now that's the story that my grandfather told me when i was just a boy
And he said that frank james, at that world's fair,
I think it was 1901 in st. louis him and jesse were both there
My grandfather and frank james were together there
And that frank james offered to bring jesse there alive
He said that the man that the ford boys killed wasn't jesse james at all
But the fellow they killed was just about the size of jesse and he was red headed
And he wasn't any relation to the fords
See, jesse james was a known cousin to charles and bob ford
That's what my grandfather said
He said jesse and frank were not even in that part of the country when that fellow was killed
And the ford boys, why, they collected a thousand dollars for killing jesse james!
Now the song says that the ford boys killed jesse
None of us up here in the mountains believe that, no sir!

song performed by Ry Cooder
Added by Lucian Velea
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My Last Afternoon With Uncle Devereux Winslow

1922: the stone porch of my Grandfather’s summer house

I
“I won’t go with you. I want to stay with Grandpa!”
That’s how I threw cold water
on my Mother and Father’s
watery martini pipe dreams at Sunday dinner.
... Fontainebleau, Mattapoisett, Puget Sound....
Nowhere was anywhere after a summer
at my Grandfather’s farm.
Diamond-pointed, athirst and Norman,
its alley of poplars
paraded from Grandmother’s rose garden
to a scary stand of virgin pine,
scrub, and paths forever pioneering.

One afternoon in 1922,
I sat on the stone porch, looking through
screens as black-grained as drifting coal.
Tockytock, tockytock
clumped our Alpine, Edwardian cuckoo clock,
slung with strangled, wooden game.
Our farmer was cementing a root-house under the hill.
One of my hands was cool on a pile
of black earth, the other warm
on a pile of lime. All about me

were the works of my Grandfather’s hands:
snapshots of his Liberty Bell silver mine;
his high school at Stuttgart am Neckar;
stogie-brown beams; fools’-gold nuggets;
octagonal red tiles,
sweaty with a secret dank, crummy with ant-stale;
a Rocky Mountain chaise longue,
its legs, shellacked saplings.
A pastel-pale Huckleberry Finn
fished with a broom straw in a basin
hollowed out of a millstone.
Like my Grandfather, the décor
was manly, comfortable,
overbearing, disproportioned.

What were those sunflowers? Pumpkins floating shoulder-high?
It was sunset, Sadie and Nellie
bearing pitchers of ice-tea,
oranges, lemons, mint, and peppermints,
and the jug of shandygaff,

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Lowell
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Eternal Creation

The Parent’s job just doesn’t end at giving birth to the child; but to irrefutably ensure that the infant was nourished with their breath and blood till the time it could unflinchingly fend for its symbiotic survival; was what the Almighty Creator had eternally created them for,

The Sun’s job just doesn’t end at giving birth to light; but to irrefutably ensure that the rays optimistically enlightened even the most infinitesimally lugubrious cranny of remorsefully cloistered earth; was what the Almighty Creator had eternally created it for,

The Rose’s job just doesn’t end at giving birth to fragrance; but to irrefutably ensure that the majestic resplendence ebulliently blossomed into the lives of countless haplessly beleaguered and bereaved; was what the Almighty Creator had eternally created it for,

The Peak’s job just doesn’t end at giving birth to victory; but to irrefutably ensure that the royal triumph peerlessly massacred even the most ethereal iota of devilishness form this Universe; was what the Almighty Creator had eternally created it for,

Nature’s job just doesn’t end at giving birth to newness; but to irrefutably ensure that the evolution metamorphosed every bit of egregiously stagnating ghoulishness into a sky of rhapsodic freshness; was what the Almighty Creator had eternally created it for,

The Cloud’s job just doesn’t end at giving birth to rain; but to irrefutably ensure that the water stupendously ignited vivaciously iridescent life in every ingredient of hopelessly dying soil; was what the Almighty Creator had eternally created it for,

The Conscience’s job just doesn’t end at giving birth to truth; but to irrefutably ensure that the righteousness insuperably conquered every trace of diabolical lies on earth and the atmosphere; was what the Almighty Creator had eternally created it for,

The Ocean’s job just doesn’t end at giving birth to salt; but to irrefutably ensure that the tanginess wonderfully illuminated every treacherously spiceles and deliriously lackadaisical moment of life; was what the Almighty Creator had eternally created it for,

The Poet’s job just doesn’t end at giving birth to fantasy; but to irrefutably ensure that the dream spellbindingly impregnates the winds of Omnipotent romance into monotonously monstrous robots; was what the Almighty Creator had eternally created him for,

The Lip’s job just doesn’t end at giving birth to smiles; but to irrefutably ensure that the happiness altruistically perpetually perpetuates into every dwelling incarcerated in chains of murderous gloom; was what the Almighty Creator had eternally created it for,

The Rainbow’s job just doesn’t end at giving birth to vividness; but to irrefutably ensure that the color timelessly enshrouded every gruesomely befriended orphan; miserably deteriorating on the globe; was what the Almighty Creator had eternally created it for,

The Shadow’s job just doesn’t end at giving birth to tranquility; but to irrefutably ensure that the peacefulness granted celestial reprieve to every bizarrely estranged soul squandering on this Universe; was what the Almighty Creator had eternally created it for,

The philanthropist’s job just doesn’t end at giving birth to unity; but to irrefutably ensure that the oneness miraculously coalesced every spuriously staggering and cold-bloodedly fighting caste; creed and tribe into the unassailable religion of humanity; was what the Almighty Creator had eternally created him for,

The wind’s job just doesn’t end at giving birth to freedom; but to irrefutably ensure that the liberation unequivocally freed every element of torturously enslaved earth till times immemorial; was what the Almighty Creator had created it for,

The night’s job just doesn’t end at giving birth to sensuality; but to irrefutably ensure that the passion brilliantly transformed every speck of infertility into the chapters of everlastingly Omniscient procreation; was what the Almighty Creator had created it for,

The eyelash’s job just doesn’t end at giving birth to flirtation; but to irrefutably ensure that the mischief serenely catapulted every fretfully frenetic organism into realms of impeccable childhood; was what the Almighty Creator had created it for,

The soldiers job just doesn’t end at giving birth to martyrdom; but to irrefutably ensure that the valor to timelessly serve the mothersoil; throbbed fearlessly in every chest; even centuries after his veritable death; was what the Almighty Creator had created him for,

The breath’s job just doesn’t end at giving birth to life; but to irrefutably ensure that the exultation inexhaustibly transcended over; even the most inane anecdote of baseless corruption and demeaning death; was what the Almighty Creator had created it for,

And the heart’s job just doesn’t end at giving birth to Love; but to irrefutably ensure that the compassionate togetherness tirelessly bonded the entire planet into a paradise of Omnipresently unshakable strength; was what the Almighty Creator had created it for…

©copyright-2004, by nikhil parekh. All rights reserved.

poem by Nikhil Parekh
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Programmed

Programmed since birth by Lord Almighty to diffuse
resplendent shade; was the gregariously blooming and
enchantingly exuberant tree,

Programmed since birth by Lord Almighty to disseminate
Omnipotent light; was the aristocratically flamboyant
and blisteringly blossoming Sun,

Programmed since birth by Lord Almighty to generate
rhapsodically unlimited tanginess; was the boundlessly
ebullient and triumphantly undulating Ocean,

Programmed since birth by Lord Almighty to fulminate
into a paradise of eternal sensuousness; was the
ravishingly titillating and celestially egalitarian
dewdrop,

Programmed since birth by Lord Almighty to mystically
enthrall even the most alien creature; was the
enigmatically uncanny and convivially compassionate
forest,

Programmed since birth by Lord Almighty to spawn into
a civilization of sacrosanct vivaciousness; was
impeccably invincible and blessed mother’s milk,

Programmed since birth by Lord Almighty to waft into
stupendously enamoring redolence; was the poignantly
crimson petal and unconquerably majestic rose,

Programmed since birth by Lord Almighty to effulgently
bond one and all in the bonds of humanity alike; was
the everlastingly perpetual spirit of timeless
camaraderie and companionship,

Programmed since birth by Lord Almighty to stand as
the most unflinching citadel even as hell gorily
reverberated from each cranny of this fathomless
planet; was the blissfully melanging and unassailably
fragrant religion of mankind,

Programmed since birth by Lord Almighty to expunge a
valley of vivid boisterousness; was the astoundingly
sweet and eclectically buzzing honey bee,

Programmed since birth by Lord Almighty to culminate
into regally inebriating melody; was the beautifully
emerald crested and innocuously mellifluous
nightingale,

[...] Read more

poem by Nikhil Parekh
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