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Seventeen

All the loud winds were in the garden wood,
All shadows joyfuller than lissom hounds
Doubled in chasing, all exultant clouds
That ever flung fierce mist and eddying fire
Across heavens deeper than blue polar seas
Fled over the sceptre-spikes of the chestnuts,
Over the speckle of the wych-elms' green.
She shouted; then stood still, hushed and abashed
To hear her voice so shrill in that gay roar,
And suddenly her eyelashes were dimmed,
Caught in tense tears of spiritual joy;
For there were daffodils which sprightly shook
Ten thousand ruffling heads throughout the wood,
And every flower of those delighting flowers
Laughed, nodding to her, till she clapped her hands
Crying 'O daffies, could you only speak!'

But there was more. A jay with skyblue shaft
Set in blunt wing, skimmed screaming on ahead.
She followed him. A murrey squirrel eyed

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poem by Robert Nichols
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No Muse Around, I Sit Down By The Side Of The Road

No muse around, I sit down by the side of the road
and let my solitude inspire me, insights
flashing like unnameable night birds
across the occult intuition of the moon.
The dark matter of nocturnal words
like the nerves of the light, the hidden scaffolding
before the light begins to shine like neurons
or the superclustering of galaxies strung out
along my axons rooted in 120 billion cells of starmud.

The silence revels in its unpredictability.
Moonrise over the birches, great blue herons
reflected in the waters of the swamp,
and a parity among wild things that makes us all
equally susceptible to each other
as we charge the air and ionize the shadows
with our sentience, everybody with blood in the game.

No rules. Just instincts. Life neither fair, nor sly
when the snow owl snatches the purse of the mouse

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poem by Patrick White
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The Prophetic Bard's Oration: From A Faun's Holiday

'Be warned! I feel the world grow old,
And off Olympus fades the gold
Of the simple passionate sun;
And the Gods wither one by one;
Proud-eyed Apollo's bow is broken,
And throned Zeus nods nor may be woken
But by the song of spirits seven
Quiring in the midnight heaven
Of a new world no more forlorn,
Sith unto it a Babe is born,
That in a propped, thatched stable lies,
While with darkling, reverent eyes
Dusky Emperors, coifed in gold,
Kneel mid the rushy mire, and hold
Caskets of rubies, urns of myrrh,
Whose fumes enwrap the thurifer
And coil toward the high dim rafters
Where, with lutes and warbling laughters,
Clustered cherubs of rainbow feather,
Fanning the fragrant air together,

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poem by Robert Nichols
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In-convenience

Very early in the morning we were woken from our sleep,
We were going on safari, being driven in a jeep,
We went out before our breakfast, we went out before sunrise,
We went out before the sleep had fully vanished from our eyes.
We had to dress quite quickly, and we went out in a rush,
And after we'd been driving through miles and miles of bush
For an hour or two (I have to say forgive the way I speak) ,
But - the roads were very bumpy - I was dying for a leak.
The driver stopped the jeep and kindly offered us a drink,
But it might have been more kind if he had only paused to think;
We had seen a herd of elephants, some vultures in the sky,
Several wildebeest and zebra, a hyena passing by,
Giraffes, a pair of ostriches, a buffalo or two,
And we'd taken lots of photographs (well, that's what tourists do) :
We had even seen some lions lazing underneath a tree,
But... we hadn't seen a toilet... and I really had to pee.
Beside a water-hole at last we found a pair of loos,
And I hurried to the gents', 'cause that's the one I have to use.
Yes, I went up to the gentlemen's, and pushed the door ajar,
But I didn't push it hard, and it didn't open far.

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poem by Paul Hansford
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You Look Ahead At The Slice Of Light At The Opening Door

You look ahead to the slice of light at the opening door
and you're tempted to look back at what
you're not going to be anymore once you walk through it
without knowing whether it's an entrance or an exit.
A station of change. A bardo state that slipped between the lines
of the Tibetan Book Of The Dead you're karmically
sowing your way through to synchronize your seed to the harvest.

Dawn soon. False or otherwise blanching the nightblue
like any other day of life upon earth, into the starless hue
of waking up from the mystery of being alone in the dark
shining into a vast solitude of hidden insights
like the eyes of shy animals warily observing you walk
through the woods like a nightwatchman without a lantern
looking for a light to go by like lightning and fireflies.

In vino veritas, mystically speaking, I've been intoxicated
by the grails and skulls of life like a drunk for so long
I speak in the oracular voices of my own exhausted honesty.
I squandered my potential on the actual, applying

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poem by Patrick White
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Britannia's Pastorals

Now as an angler melancholy standing
Upon a green bank yielding room for landing,
A wriggling yellow worm thrust on his hook,
Now in the midst he throws, then in a nook:
Here pulls his line, there throws it in again,
Mendeth his cork and bait, but all in vain,
He long stands viewing of the curled stream;
At last a hungry pike, or well-grown bream
Snatch at the worm, and hasting fast away,
He knowing it a fish of stubborn sway,
Pulls up his rod, but soft, as having skill,
Wherewith the hook fast holds the fish's gill;
Then all his line he freely yieldeth him,
Whilst furiously all up and down doth swim
Th' insnared fish, here on the top doth scud,
There underneath the banks, then in the mud,
And with his frantic fits so scares the shoal,
That each one takes his hide, or starting hole:
By this the pike, clean wearied, underneath
A willow lies, and pants (if fishes breathe)

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poem by William Browne
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Part 3 ~ Rain

It was the rainy season. The little girl could hear rumbling sounds off in the distance as she watched rivulets of water stream down her bedroom window. Flashes of lightning were casting shadows on the bedroom walls resembling scary claws that she was convinced were going to get her. She could hear the wind wooing like a ghost outside and she could feel it building, a panic in her chest that put her into a frozen state of fear. She thought her heart was going to explode and a sharp pain began stabbing her under the armpit. "It's ok. It's ok. It's ok", the little girl repeated her mantra as another strike hit the atmosphere. BOOM! It sounded like a bomb had just gone off startling her into the now moment, shooting a shot of adrenaline straight into her veins. Her mind snapped back out of it's thick quicksand trap and panic gripped her. Pant, pant, pant, she was hyperventilating now. Stiff and unable to move she tried with all her might to raise the sheet up over her face but her arms wouldn't connect with her brain. She‘d shut down. Pretending to be invisible from the wall claws she thought that she might be better off dead anyway. Who would miss her? The only one she could think of was her daddy. He'd hung the moon and was in the next room, but mother said never to get out of bed before morning unless is was for life or death. She knew there would be hell to pay if she knocked on their door. Her mother was as unpredictable as a snake and you never knew what to expect next. She'd run off for two weeks and had only come home a couple of days ago. The little girl had been walking from school daydreaming about how much better things were with her gone. There hadn't been any yelling or screaming or spankings since she'd left. Her father was a bit down in the mouth, but she could fix that. She was sure. He loved her best and that would conquer any sadness he felt from her mothers absence. It would just be she and Daddy and her little brother. They would live happily ever after away from the wicked witch. But, somewhere in her heart she knew it was too good to be true. He would take her mother back just like he always had before. So there she was walking home barefoot in her little white tank top with orange shorts and pixie haircut when her mother pulled up beside her in her car. "Hi, Sissy! " she exclaimed as if she had just seen her at the breakfast table that same morning. The little girl was shocked to see her and didn't know how to respond. "Hi mom" she said in a deflated voice she didn't recognize as her own. "Get in" her mother said cheerily. "I'll drive you home". Warily the little girl got into the front seat. Her mother acted just as happy as vanilla pudding until the little girl finally got up the courage to ask. "Mom, where have you been"? "Oh, I went to Kauai" she said with no other explanation. The little girl knew that Kauai was a plane ride away from Oahu and was surprised. She had gone to Kauai once for summer camp and remembered what fun it had been for her to get away from home. There was horseback riding, and hiking among other things and she pictured her mother doing those same things for some odd reason. Lost in this thought the passenger side door flew open unexpectedly. The little girl realized that she must not have shut it completely when she got in and it must have come unhinged. Her mother had not noticed because she had her eyes on the road, and the little girl was terrified to tell her, but she was more afraid of falling out of the car. "Mom, the door came open" she said and as quick as a cobra her mother backhanded the girl across her face, cutting the bridge of her nose with one of the heavy rings she wore. "Close it." she demanded and the little girl did as she was told wiping blood and raindrops away from her face as they headed toward home.

poem by Sara Fielder
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Autumn's Window Decorations! ! !

Spring gallops with his unbridled flourish, flamboyant in display,
In winter solstice rebuked, mellow Sun languishes in disarray,
Sedate autumn tiptoes warily stepping over spring’s leftovers,
Triumphs over its boisterous fracas, spilling glory in arcade of mature colors,

Smarmy cold winds guzzle darkness, a vice reserved for the night,
Cajoling her to huddle, intoxicated take to bed the moon,
Under the light blanket of stars, tossed off with approaching light,
In silhouette lull descends, to disrobe nature at dawn

Summer dons its last garb with deviance, as Nature begs,
For just one more warm day to bask in the subdued Sun,
Stealing away our precious light as nightfall creeps faster into day,
September’s sloppy kiss, bids adieu to summer’s last hoorah.

Catching a light and a shade of a vibrant spectrum, worn-out leaves dangle,
Lets doubtful light filter, through the tapestry of their veins, delicate,
Into decorative window hangings, sequined with colorful gems from the deep,
Sunlight streams through in beams, in shimmering golden brocade.

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poem by Seema joglekar
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Crossing The River On Thin Ice

Crossing the river on thin ice, the next step
the beginning, and the one after that
the end and the whole of the rest of your life.
I’m listening for cracks in a mirror.
I’m jumping from rock to rock
like prophetic skulls
cobbling the yellow brick road
with glacial i.e.d.s
playing chess with my nerves
like the wicked witch of the east
laying bets against my afterlife
should I break through
and be swept under
to look at the stars as I used to do
on summer nights flat on my back
when I was young
only to find, older, I still do,
through a broken window in a palace of ice
like an acid flashback of my whole life
seen through an ice-age cataract

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poem by Patrick White
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The Dwarves

Loke sat and thought, till his dark eyes gleam
With joy at the deed he'd done;
When Sif looked into the crystal stream,
Her courage was wellnigh gone.

For never again her soft amber hair
Shall she braid with her hands of snow;
From the hateful image she turned in despair,
And hot tears began to flow.

In a cavern's mouth, like a crafty fox,
Loke sat 'neath the tall pine's shade,
When sudden a thundering was heard in the rocks,
And fearfully trembled the glade.

Then he knew that the noise good boded him naught,
He knew that 't was Thor who was coming;
He changed himself straight to a salmon trout,
And leaped in a fright in the Glommen.

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poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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