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The Calls

A dismal fog-hoarse siren howls at dawn.
I watch the man it calls for, pushed and drawn
Backwards and forwards, helpless as a pawn.
But I'm lazy, and his work's crazy.

Quick treble bells begin at nine o'clock,
Scuttling the schoolboy pulling up his sock,
Scaring the late girl in the inky frock.
I must be crazy; I learn from the daisy.

Stern bells annoy the rooks and doves at ten.
I watch the verger close the doors, and when
I hear the organ moan the first amen,
Sing my religion's-same as pigeons'.

A blatant bugle tears my afternoons.
Out clump the clumsy Tommies by platoons,
Trying to keep in step with rag-time tunes,
But I sit still; I've done my drill.

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poem by Wilfred Owen
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The Calls [unfinished]

A dismal fog-hoarse siren howls at dawn.
I watch the man it calls for, pushed and drawn
Backwards and forwards, helpless as a pawn.
But I'm lazy, and his work's crazy.

Quick treble bells begin at nine o'clock,
Scuttling the schoolboy pulling up his sock,
Scaring the late girl in the inky frock.
I must be crazy; I learn from the daisy.

Stern bells annoy the rooks and doves at ten.
I watch the verger close the doors, and when
I hear the organ moan the first amen,
Sing my religion's-same as pigeons'.

A blatant bugle tears my afternoons.
Out clump the clumsy Tommies by platoons,
Trying to keep in step with rag-time tunes,
But I sit still; I've done my drill.

[...] Read more

poem by Wilfred Owen
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Howl Amidst the Noise

The tempo dithered inconsistently
And in the yawning lapses
The schmaltz billowed flustered
With silence coiled in the arms
Of the blaring mutiny,
Amidst the frothing potions
And bemusing hazes
Of surfeit death kisses
In the slithering arms
Behind the undulating frescoes
Of the jaunty sizzles
Of bloating bars.

A door creaked open,
And the cranium crackled from
The dissipation of inebriation
Leaving the furrows scathed
And dousing the drought
Riveted in the bosom
Of the beguiled enigma

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poem by Norman Santos
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Lamia in Blackburn Wood

[In the form of traditional folk ballad.]

I

In Blackburn Wood a maid betrothed
that rode a garlanded mare
by cutthroat maimed for maidenhood
writhed in crimson there.

Dislimbed beneath a shrieking sun
and left for carrion-kite,
the savaged maid survived their beaks,
and slithered into night.

II

By summer's end, to Blackburn Wood
a sheath of night returned;
beneath its hood and tapered robe
maiden vengeance burned.

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poem by William F Dougherty
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I am beautiful

I am beautiful

Despite the scars on my face,

The absent teeth

And the broken smile

I am beautiful

The broken nose bridge and the missing hair clump are really nothing to go by

I am beautiful

I will repeat, even if I’m the only one to say so

I am beautiful

I will tell myself, even if I evade the mirror like a coward

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poem by Jovan Fernandes
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I Encountered a Dragon

If a monster occupies the clump of eyes on our face
We hate the return of senses to the tears and face.
One monster is commotion, two creates tragedy
As well farce, fodder and feminine curiosity.
For these she-devils do not undermine the soul
As much as dragons, talons from the talent, creative sort.
We needed the strength and the spirit, the afflatus;
What is the amperage they create from the breath?
Which impulse afflicts him, the dragon?
He needs me to answer him, yet I do too,
And to aerially combat him is grand with amperage
As I do be grand, the eyes can tell and demonstrate
And commence for all the time.
My sword is my soldier, an affray has emerged forever,
Between dragon and human-beast, what is the final result?
Only a monster like me can win, can win;
Killing the scales of yellow, I discover it is not golden but bronze
And yet I want death for it, for him, for him,
Upper class dragon!
I am upper class, and fatigued by the whole battle

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poem by Naveed Akram
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The Eclipse

‘My thoughts are often consumed by death
And the dark side of the Moon, '
I said to Jane as she sensed my pain
On that Sunday afternoon,
We'd sat through the morning sermon
Of the Tempting on the Mount,
‘The Devil is often abroad, ' she said,
‘More times than we can count! '

‘Yet God is the infinite mystery,
He never has shown himself,
He doesn't swoop down to rescue us
Or curb the excess of wealth! '
I said there were so many questions
That had led me into doubt,
But Jane, the waif, had a simple faith
And she turned me inside out.

‘Look at the trees and bushes here
And the way they propagate,

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poem by David Lewis Paget
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Cancer of the Laboring Heart

Deep within the chambers of my frantic tachycardic nucleus
Lies a shrouded growth, dividing and multiplying
A renegade clump of cells, a copious cancer of the hurting heart
Carrying forth a patchwork architecture of your yesteryear
Where all memories stream to their source, to you my love
When your mystical visage softly settled on mine
As our lips converged, to embrace the zeniths of an apical love
As our dewy lips, transfigured to craters of passion, oozing with molten lava
As my body incinerated to the resonating fervor of your apical bonfires, your luminescent hearth
Alas now, my lonely heart decays in dismal waves of subjugation
As the warrior in me stutters, etched by the blades of your pirouetting memories
As a knight disheveled of armor, of glory, is setting foot on a lopsided battlefield
As a million traitors were sipping the wine of the body
Seated on thrones of crumbling ventricles and choking atria
Engulfed in to boundless cycles of multiplying bliss
As doorways were absented by the guards of cellular sanity
As now, I stare at a vague flickering light at the end of the tunnel
Embarking on a journey of recuperation, of precious love regained
A Miltonian sequel to evaporate my waves of melancholy in my sea of solitude
For a lass with a heart of a feather, to levitate me back to the precious arms of life

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poem by Dilantha Gunawardana
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The Slave

It was a glorious sunset hour:—a scent
Of rich perfume, from many a twisted wreath
Of summer blossoms, clustering in their wild
And free profusion, ‘neath a southern sky,
Came on the evening breeze, and streams went by
With a glad tone, and the hush'd birds came forth
From the thick woods, and lifted up the voice
Of their hearts’ mirthful music. Painted wings
Were fluttering on the breeze, and the bees’ hum
Made a glad melody.—

At a hill's foot,
Beside a gushing stream, and ‘neath a clump
Of close embowering trees, there stood a cot,
At whose low door a mother sung to rest,
With a sad lullaby, her infant boy.

I.

These southern climes are bright, are bright,

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poem by Elizabeth Margaret Chandler from Poetical Works (1836)
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A Soaring Toad

So, Governor, you would not serve again
Although we'd all agree to pay you double.
You find it all is vanity and pain
One clump of clover in a field of stubble
One grain of pleasure in a peck of trouble.
'Tis sad, at your age, having to complain
Of disillusion; but the fault is whose
When pigmies stumble, wearing giants' shoes?

I humbly told you many moons ago
For high preferment you were all unfit.
A clumsy bear makes but a sorry show
Climbing a pole. Let him, judicious, sit
With dignity at bottom of his pit,
And none his awkwardness will ever know.
Some beasts look better, and feel better, too,
Seen from above; and so, I think, would you.

Why, you were mad! Did you suppose because
Our foolish system suffers foolish men

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poem by Ambrose Bierce
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