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Good Riddance to Imprudent Riddance

The yuletide breeze was gyrating, birds migrating
When a tourist flagrantly sniggered and took a swing
Wading through the acrimonious saturation of the horizon
In my soggy eyelids, the harbingers of time beckon
With the phosphorescent shadows of the gloaming
In crimson and in tangerine; a shrill riddance chafing,
That seeps through the notches of rustic persiennes
Summoning an effluent whiff of premature senescence
That clawed into my toppling skin with a vicarious sin
Cloyed in a lethargic nostalgia, just like the current scene;
I docilely surmised another pensive all-night episode
Haplessly cajoling with the ceiling and groaning floorboard
Accompanied by a treacherous bride; this anxious anticipation
That shoves me trampling to drain my arsenal in attrition
And inflect the affable arms of my caressing facilities
From a superfluous card in a paper-cut to infinite amities
That resides in a shrouded house of gambling cards
An elixir to the qualms of abandonment in haphazard
Suffice enough to whittle valiance from my bones
And bid riddance to riddance and sing sticks and stones.

poem by Norman Santos
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Thank You For The Drink

As you percolated through the sieves
With an impassive watchfulness -
A sentry intoxicated by distress
For a comrade's fluttering sense
I waved my wrist noncommittally
And dragged my panacea wistfully
Dispensing your endeavors futilely
For you, and the rest of my everybody
Is my artillery, my only affinity left
And I will not tarnish you with my disease
I shall keep you unstained and purged
From my awry and foible soliloquy

So fret not for my erratic smiles
For I will soon succumb to your lulls
And wrought not your fist to rubble
Staring daggers at my tormenters
Because my demons are selfishly mine
And my lugubrious suppurations
Will soon decay like everything

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poem by Norman Santos
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Shakespeare

TERCENTENNIAL CELEBRATION

APRIL 23, 1864

'Who claims our Shakespeare from that realm unknown,
Beyond the storm-vexed islands of the deep,
Where Genoa's roving mariner was blown?
Her twofold Saint's-day let our England keep;
Shall warring aliens share her holy task?'
The Old World echoes ask.

O land of Shakespeare! ours with all thy past,
Till these last years that make the sea so wide;
Think not the jar of battle's trumpet-blast
Has dulled our aching sense to joyous pride
In every noble word thy sons bequeathed
The air our fathers breathed!

War-wasted, haggard, panting from the strife,
We turn to other days and far-off lands,

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poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes
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Proem.

I only knew one poet in my life.
— BROWNING.
I have not known a poet but myself,
If I'm indeed one, as I ought to be,
Considering how these many years I've made
The Muse now such a woman in my life.
No flesh and blood could put to proof the art
With which I wooed her; ay, and woo her still,
Though, as I deem, ere this she has been won.
I have not known another, as I say,
Who could be called a poet, or has been
Acclaimed such by the not too wise in wit
Who label literature's itinerants —
Professed discerners (as in every art
With sheer cock-surety there be those who
Deem their diploma Fame's own warranty);
Who in this journal or in that take stock
O' the issue of thought's making — song at best
A poor result, not to much tending (or if
Esteemed, good, e'en though flawed in some way still).

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poem by Robert Crawford
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The Song Of The Camp-Fire

Heed me, feed me, I am hungry, I am red-tongued with desire;
Boughs of balsam, slabs of cedar, gummy fagots of the pine,
Heap them on me, let me hug them to my eager heart of fire,
Roaring, soaring up to heaven as a symbol and a sign.
Bring me knots of sunny maple, silver birch and tamarack;
Leaping, sweeping, I will lap them with my ardent wings of flame;
I will kindle them to glory, I will beat the darkness back;
Streaming, gleaming, I will goad them to my glory and my fame.
Bring me gnarly limbs of live-oak, aid me in my frenzied fight;
Strips of iron-wood, scaly blue-gum, writhing redly in my hold;
With my lunge of lurid lances, with my whips that flail the night,
They will burgeon into beauty, they will foliate in gold.
Let me star the dim sierras, stab with light the inland seas;
Roaming wind and roaring darkness! seek no mercy at my hands;
I will mock the marly heavens, lamp the purple prairies,
I will flaunt my deathless banners down the far, unhouseled lands.
In the vast and vaulted pine-gloom where the pillared forests frown,
By the sullen, bestial rivers running where God only knows,
On the starlit coral beaches when the combers thunder down,
In the death-spell of the barrens, in the shudder of the snows;

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poem by Robert William Service
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Habakkuk

Now leave the Porch, to vision now retreat,
Where the next rapture glows with varying heat;
Now change the time, and change the Temple scene,
The following Seer forewarns a future reign.
To some retirement, where the Prophets sons
Indulge their holy flight, my fancy runs,
Some sacred College built for praise and pray'r
And heav'nly dream, she seeks Habakkuk there.
Perhaps 'tis there he moans the nation's sin,
Hears the word come, or feels the fit within,
Or sees the vision fram'd with Angels hands,
And dreads the judgments of revolted lands,
Or holds a converse if the Lord appear,
And, like Elijah, wraps his face for fear.
This deep recess portends an act of weight,
A message lab'ring with the work of fate.

Methinks the Skies have lost their lovely blue,
A storm rides fiery, thick the clouds ensue.
Fall'n to the ground with prostrate face I lye,

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poem by Thomas Parnell
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