VOICES AND VERSE:
An afternoon of poetry
Read by Monmouth college faculty
Thursday, 25 April, 2013
3:45pm; Morgan Room, Poling Hall
1
TABLE OF CONTENTS
David Timmerman
Rob Hale
Michael Harrison
James Godde
Annika Hagley
Mark Willhardt
Craig Watson
Marlo Belschner
Lee McGaan
Petra Kuppinger
William Wordsworth, “The Tables Turned: An Evening Scene on that Same Subject”
William Wordsworth, “The World is Too Much With Us: Late and Soon”
Robert Frost, “The Road Not Taken”
Mike Cross, “The Scotsman”
Robert Frost, “Desert Places”
Wilfred Owen, “The Parable of the Old Man and the Young”
Catallus 2
Catallus 3
Joanna Klink, “And Having Lost Track”
Joanna Klink, “Apology”
e. e. cummings, “(listen)”
Pablo Neruda, “A Callarse”
William Butler Yeats, “Lapis Lazuli”
Federico García Lorca, “Romance Sonámbulo”
J.R.R. Tolkien, “The Mewlips”
Ani DiFranco, “Bodily”
Edna St. Vincent Millay, Sonnet XL
Elizabeth Bishop, “The Fish”
David Wright, “Lines on Retirement, After Reading Lear”
T. S. Eliot, “The Four Quartets: Burnt Norton”
Theodor Fontane, “Herr von Ribbeck auf Ribbeck im Havelland”
Original poetry:
Erika Solberg
Rev. Dr. B. Kathleen Fannin
Luz Schick
Benjamin Eaton
Joe Angotti
Rachael Laing
“One Year Barbara Was a Cowgirl and Eddie Was a Cow”
“ALONE”
“My Mother’s Garden”
“Island Number 10”
“Something Close to Home” by Arica Brazil
“Necromancer”
Steve Bloomer
Bill Wallace
Eric Dickens
Anne Mamary
Tom Sienkewicz
Hannah Schell
Ken Cramer
2
David Timmerman
William Wordsworth
“The Tables Turned:
An Evening Scene on that Same Subject”
Up! up! my Friend, and quit your books;
Or surely you’ll grow double:
Up! up! my Friend, and clear your looks;
Why all this toil and trouble?
She has a world of ready wealth,
Our minds and hearts to bless—
Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health,
Truth breathed by cheerfulness.
The sun, above the mountain’s head,
A freshening lustre mellow
Through all the long green fields has spread,
His first sweet evening yellow.
One impulse from a vernal wood
May teach you more of man,
Of moral evil and of good,
Than all the sages can.
Books! ‘tis a dull and endless strife:
Come, hear the woodland linnet
How sweet his music! on my life,
There’s more of wisdom in it.
Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;
Our meddling intellect
Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things:—
We murder to dissect.
And hark! how blithe the throstle sings!
He, too, is no mean preacher:
Come forth into the light of things,
Let Nature be your Teacher.
Enough of Science and of Art;
Close up those barren leaves;
Come forth, and bring with you a heart
That watches and receives.
(1798)
3
David Timmerman
Stephen Bloomer
William Wordsworth
“The World Is Too Much With Us; Late and Soon”
Robert Frost
“The Road Not Taken”
The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
The sea that bares her bosom to the moon,
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are upgathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything we are out of tune;
It moves us not. Great God! I’d rather be
A pagan suckled in a creed outworn,
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.
(1804)
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
4
Bill Wallace
Eric Dickens
Mike Cross
“The Scotsman”
Robert Frost
“Desert Places”
Well a Scotsman clad in kilt left the bar one evening fair
And one could tell by how he walked that he’d drunk more than his share
He fumbled ‘round until he could no longer keep his feet
And stumbled off into the grass to sleep beside the street
Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast
In a field I looked into going past,
And the ground almost covered smooth in snow,
But a few weeds and stubble showing last.
About that time two young and lovely girls just happened by
One says to the other with a twinkle in her eye
“See yon sleeping Scotsman so strong and handsome built
I wonder if it’s true what they don’t wear beneath their kilt?”
The woods around it have it - it is theirs.
All animals are smothered in their lairs.
I am too absent-spirited to count;
The loneliness includes me unawares.
They crept up on that sleeping Scotsman quiet as they could be
Lifted up his kilt about an inch so they could see
And there behold for them to view beneath his Scottish skirt
Was nothing more than God had graced him with upon his birth
And lonely as it is, that loneliness
Will be more lonely ere it will be less A blanker whiteness of benighted snow
With no expression, nothing to express.
They marveled for a moment then on said, “We must be gone
Let’s leave a message for our friend before we move along”
As a gift they left a blue silk ribbon tied into a bow
Around the bonnie star the Scot’s kilt did lift and show
They cannot scare me with their empty spaces
Between stars - on stars where no human race is.
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places.
Now the Scotsman woke to nature’s call and stumbled towards the trees
Behind the bush he lifts his kilt and gawks at what he sees
And in a startled voice he says to what’s before his eyes
“Ah lad I don’t know where you’ve been but I see ya won first prize!”
5
Anne Mamary
Tom Sienkewicz
Wilfred Owen
“The Parable of the Old Man and the Young”
Catullus 2
Passer, deliciae meae puellae,
quicum ludere, quem in sinu tenere,
cui primum digitum dare appetenti
et acris solet incitare morsus,
cum desiderio meo nitenti
carum nescio quid lubet iocari
et solaciolum sui doloris,
credo ut tum gravis acquiescat ardor:
tecum ludere sicut ipsa possem
et tristis animi levare curas!
So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,
And took the fire with him, and a knife.
And as they sojourned both of them together,
Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father,
Behold the preparations, fire and iron,
But where the lamb for this burnt-offering?
Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,
and builded parapets and trenches there,
And stretchèd forth the knife to slay his son.
When lo! an angel called him out of heaven,
Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad,
Neither do anything to him. Behold,
A ram, caught in a thicket by its horns;
Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him.
But the old man would not so, but slew his son,
And half the seed of Europe, one by one.
Sparrow, favorite of my girl,
with whom she is accustomed to play, whom she is accustomed to hold
in her lap,
for whom, seeking greedily, she is accustomed to give her index finger
and to provoke sharp bites.
When it is pleasing for my shining desire
to make some kind of joke
and a relief of her grief.
I believe, so that her heavy passion may become quiet.
If only I were able to play with you yourself, and
to lighten the sad cares of your mind.
Translation by Joannes Fortaperus
6
Tom Sienkewicz
Catullus 3
LVGETE, o Veneres Cupidinesque,
et quantum est hominum uenustiorum:
passer mortuus est meae puellae,
passer, deliciae meae puellae,
quem plus illa oculis suis amabat.
nam mellitus erat suamque norat
ipsam tam bene quam puella matrem,
nec sese a gremio illius mouebat,
sed circumsiliens modo huc modo illuc
ad solam dominam usque pipiabat.
qui nunc it per iter tenebricosum
illuc, unde negant redire quemquam.
at uobis male sit, malae tenebrae
Orci, quae omnia bella deuoratis:
tam bellum mihi passerem abstulistis
o factum male! o miselle passer!
tua nunc opera meae puellae
flendo turgiduli rubent ocelli.
Mourn, oh Cupids and Venuses,
and whatever there is of rather pleasing men:
the sparrow of my girlfriend has died,
the sparrow, delight of my girl,
whom she loved more than her own eyes.
For it was honey-sweet and it had known its
mistress as well as a girl knew her mother,
nor did it move itself from her lap,
but jumping around now here now there
he used to chirp continually to his mistress alone:
who now goes through that gloomy journey
from whence they denied anyone returns.
But may it go badly for you, bad darkness
of Orcus, you who devour all beautiful things:
and so beautiful a bird you taken away from me
o bad deed! o miserable sparrow!
Now on account of your work my girl's
slightly swollen little eyes are red from weeping.
Translation by Walter Sullivan
7
Hannah Schell
or sounds like the inside of a shell,
and the word shell means
too many things. As if this were the last
mile, a path fashioned with white roses.
And chose the science of extraction,
the science of snow.
And walked in the dark world,
everywhere shaking with light.
That we only exist. That we do not
have the means. And are free to take place.
Joanna Klink
“And Having Lost Track”
from Circadian (2007)
And having lost track, I walked
toward the open field. Now transparent,
now far, the day-moon burned through the waste
air. I passed a scientist, his hands
holding cinders to the sky.
I passed a pile of corroding metal,
a young girl with a ring of keys.
The sound of a flute came and went.
I passed a garden under snow, a half-open book,
a man unaccustomed to grief.
And thought: what must I do differently.
And could not avoid the scraps of glass,
the fog at my knees. I, like you,
am irreparable. And aware that
when the cold clouds lift, there may be nothing.
And having lost track, I walked by the high
gold grasses, a softness I could not reach to
feel. And came upon a table laid out
with wine and winter shadow. We shall
grow heavy. And felt the signature of light,
of sound and people, laid bare within me.
And I would give it up: this weight,
this concentration. Would gladly
be mistaken, or rebuild by force what
cannot hold. I passed the slow autumn sun
as it moved through the branches,
the terrible spread of deserts, the leap
of a bleeding deer.
To be outside the classifiable world,
and having lost track, and having heard
no message. As when a single existence
vanishes and the flute does not warp,
8
Hannah Schell
Ken Cramer
Joanna Klink
“Apology”
from Circadian (2007)
e. e. cummings
“(listen)”
(listen)
Lately, too much disturbed, you stay trailing in me
and I believe you. How could I not feel
you were misspent, there by books stacked clean on glass,
or outside the snow arriving as I am still arriving.
If the explanations amount to something, I will tell you.
It is enough, you say, that surfaces grow so distant.
Maybe you darken, already too much changed,
maybe in your house you would be content where
no incident emerges, but for smoke or glass or air,
such things held simply to be voiceless.
And if you mean me, I believe you.
Or if you should darken, this inwardness would be misspent,
and flinching I might pause, and add to these meager
incidents the words. Some books
should stake formal on the shelves.
So surely I heard you, in your complication aware,
snow holding where it might weightless rest,
and should you fold into me – trackless, misspent,
too much arranged – I might believe you
but swiftly shut, lines of smoke rising through snow,
here where it seems no good word emerges.
though it is cold, I am aware such reluctance
could lose these blinking hours to simple safety.
Here is an inwardless purpose.
In these hours when snow shuts, it may be we empty,
amounting to something. How could I not
wait for those few words, which we might enter.
this a dog barks and
how crazily houses
eyes people smiles
faces streets
steeples are eagerly
tumbl
ing through wonder
ful sunlight
––look––
selves,stir:writhe
o-p-e-n-i-n-g
are(leaves;flowers)dreams
,come quickly come
run run
with me now
jump shout(laugh
dance cry
sing)for it’s Spring
9
––irrevocably;
and in
earth sky trees
:every
where a miracle arrives
Ken Cramer
Pablo Neruda
“A Callarse”
Ahora contaremos doce
y nos quedamos todos quietos.
(yes)
you and i may not
hurry it with
a thousand poems
my darling
but nobody will stop it
Por una vez sobre la tierra
no hablemos en ningún idioma,
por un segundo detengámonos,
no movamos tanto los brazos.
With All The Policeman In The World
Sería un minuto fragante,
sin prisa, sin locomotoras,
todos estaríamos juntos
en una inquietud instantánea.
Los pescadores del mar frío
no harían daño a las ballenas
y el trabajador de la sal
miraría sus manos rotas.
Los que preparan guerras verdes,
guerras de gas, guerras de fuego,
victorias sin sobrevivientes,
se pondrían un traje puro
y andarían con sus hermanos
por la sombra, sin hacer nada.
10
No se confunda lo que quiero
con la inaccíon definitiva:
la vida es solo lo que se hace,
no quiero nada con la muerte.
“Keeping Quiet”
Si no pudimos ser unánimes
moviendo tanto nuestras vidas,
tal vez no hacer nada una vez,
tal vez un gran silencio pueda
interrumpir esta tristeza,
este no entendernos jamás
y amenazarnos con la muerte,
tal vez la tierra nos enseñe
cuando todo parece muerto
y luego todo estaba vivo.
This one time upon the earth,
let’s not speak any language,
let’s stop for one second,
and not move our arms so much.
Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still.
It would be a delicious moment,
without hurry, without locomotives,
all of us would be together
in a sudden uneasiness.
The fishermen in the cold sea
would do no harm to the whales
and the peasant gathering salt
would look at this torn hands.
Ahora contaré hasta doce
y tú callas y me voy.
Those who prepare green wars,
wars of gas, wars of fire,
victories without survivors,
would put on clean clothing
and would walk alongside their brothers
in the shade, without doing a thing.
What I want shouldn’t be confused
with final inactivity:
life alone is what matters,
I want nothing to do with death.
11
If we weren’t unanimous
about keeping our lives in so much motion,
if we could do nothing for once,
perhaps a great silence would
interrupt this sadness,
this never understanding ourselves
and threatening ourselves with death,
perhaps the earth is teaching us
when everything seems to be dead
and then everything is alive.
Rob Hale
William Butler Yeats
“Lapis Lazuli”
I have heard that hysterical women say
They are sick of the palette and fiddle-bow.
Of poets that are always gay,
For everybody knows or else should know
That if nothing drastic is done
Aeroplane and Zeppelin will come out.
Pitch like King Billy bomb-balls in
Until the town lie beaten flat.
Now I will count to twelve
and you keep quiet and I’ll go.
Translated by Stephen Mitchell
All perform their tragic play,
There struts Hamlet, there is Lear,
That's Ophelia, that Cordelia;
Yet they, should the last scene be there,
The great stage curtain about to drop,
If worthy their prominent part in the play,
Do not break up their lines to weep.
They know that Hamlet and Lear are gay;
Gaiety transfiguring all that dread.
All men have aimed at, found and lost;
Black out; Heaven blazing into the head:
Tragedy wrought to its uttermost.
Though Hamlet rambles and Lear rages,
And all the drop-scenes drop at once
Upon a hundred thousand stages,
It cannot grow by an inch or an ounce.
On their own feet they came, or On shipboard,'
Camel-back; horse-back, ass-back, mule-back,
12
Old civilisations put to the sword.
Then they and their wisdom went to rack:
No handiwork of Callimachus,
Who handled marble as if it were bronze,
Made draperies that seemed to rise
When sea-wind swept the corner, stands;
His long lamp-chimney shaped like the stem
Of a slender palm, stood but a day;
All things fall and are built again,
And those that build them again are gay.
Michael Harrison
Federico García Lorca
“Romance Sonámbulo”
Verde que te quiero verde.
Verde viento. Verdes ramas.
El barco sobre la mar
y el caballo en la montaña.
Con la sombra en la cintura
ella sueña en su baranda,
verde carne, pelo verde,
con ojos de fría plata.
Verde que te quiero verde.
Bajo la luna gitana,
las cosas le están mirando
y ella no puede mirarlas.
Two Chinamen, behind them a third,
Are carved in lapis lazuli,
Over them flies a long-legged bird,
A symbol of longevity;
The third, doubtless a serving-man,
Carries a musical instrument.
Verde que te quiero verde.
Grandes estrellas de escarcha,
vienen con el pez de sombra
que abre el camino del alba.
La higuera frota su viento
con la lija de sus ramas,
y el monte, gato garduño,
eriza sus pitas agrias.
¿Pero quién vendrá? ¿Y por dónde...?
Ella sigue en su baranda,
verde carne, pelo verde,
soñando en la mar amarga.
Every discoloration of the stone,
Every accidental crack or dent,
Seems a water-course or an avalanche,
Or lofty slope where it still snows
Though doubtless plum or cherry-branch
Sweetens the little half-way house
Those Chinamen climb towards, and I
Delight to imagine them seated there;
There, on the mountain and the sky,
On all the tragic scene they stare.
One asks for mournful melodies;
Accomplished fingers begin to play.
Their eyes mid many wrinkles, their eyes,
Their ancient, glittering eyes, are gay.
Compadre, quiero cambiar
mi caballo por su casa,
mi montura por su espejo,
mi cuchillo por su manta.
Compadre, vengo sangrando,
desde los montes de Cabra.
13
Si yo pudiera, mocito,
ese trato se cerraba.
Pero yo ya no soy yo,
ni mi casa es ya mi casa.
Compadre, quiero morir
decentemente en mi cama.
De acero, si puede ser,
con las sábanas de Holanda.
¿No ves la herida que tengo
desde el pecho a la garganta?
Trescientas rosas morenas
lleva tu pechera blanca.
Tu sangre rezuma y huele
alrededor de tu faja.
Pero yo ya no soy yo,
ni mi casa es ya mi casa.
Dejadme subir al menos
hasta las altas barandas,
dejadme subir, dejadme,
hasta las verdes barandas.
Barandales de la luna
por donde retumba el agua.
de hiel, de menta y de albahaca.
¡Compadre! ¿Dónde está, dime?
¿Dónde está mi niña amarga?
¡Cuántas veces te esperó!
¡Cuántas veces te esperara,
cara fresca, negro pelo,
en esta verde baranda!
Sobre el rostro del aljibe
se mecía la gitana.
Verde carne, pelo verde,
con ojos de fría plata.
Un carámbano de luna
la sostiene sobre el agua.
La noche su puso íntima
como una pequeña plaza.
Guardias civiles borrachos,
en la puerta golpeaban.
Verde que te quiero verde.
Verde viento. Verdes ramas.
El barco sobre la mar.
Y el caballo en la montaña.
Ya suben los dos compadres
hacia las altas barandas.
Dejando un rastro de sangre.
Dejando un rastro de lágrimas.
Temblaban en los tejados
farolillos de hojalata.
Mil panderos de cristal,
herían la madrugada.
Verde que te quiero verde,
verde viento, verdes ramas.
Los dos compadres subieron.
El largo viento, dejaba
en la boca un raro gusto
14
Green, how I want you green.
Green wind. Green branches.
The ship out on the sea
and the horse on the mountain.
With the shade around her waist
she dreams on her balcony,
green flesh, her hair green,
with eyes of cold silver.
Green, how I want you green.
Under the gypsy moon,
all things are watching her
and she cannot see them.
decently in my bed.
Of iron, if that's possible,
with blankets of fine chambray.
Don't you see the wound I have
from my chest up to my throat?
--Your white shirt has grown
thirsy dark brown roses.
Your blood oozes and flees a
round the corners of your sash.
But now I am not I,
nor is my house now my house.
--Let me climb up, at least,
up to the high balconies;
Let me climb up! Let me,
up to the green balconies.
Railings of the moon
through which the water rumbles.
Green, how I want you green.
Big hoarfrost stars
come with the fish of shadow
that opens the road of dawn.
The fig tree rubs its wind
with the sandpaper of its branches,
and the forest, cunning cat,
bristles its brittle fibers.
But who will come? And from where?
She is still on her balcony
green flesh, her hair green,
dreaming in the bitter sea.
Now the two friends climb up,
up to the high balconies.
Leaving a trail of blood.
Leaving a trail of teardrops.
Tin bell vines
were trembling on the roofs.
A thousand crystal tambourines
struck at the dawn light.
--My friend, I want to trade
my horse for her house,
my saddle for her mirror,
my knife for her blanket.
My friend, I come bleeding
from the gates of Cabra.
--If it were possible, my boy,
I'd help you fix that trade.
But now I am not I,
nor is my house now my house.
--My friend, I want to die
Green, how I want you green,
green wind, green branches.
The two friends climbed up.
The stiff wind left
in their mouths, a strange taste
of bile, of mint, and of basil
My friend, where is she--tell me-where is your bitter girl?
How many times she waited for you!
How many times would she wait for you,
cool face, black hair,
15
on this green balcony!
Over the mouth of the cistern
the gypsy girl was swinging,
green flesh, her hair green,
with eyes of cold silver.
An icicle of moon
holds her up above the water.
The night became intimate
like a little plaza.
Drunken "Guardias Civiles"
were pounding on the door.
Green, how I want you green.
Green wind. Green branches.
The ship out on the sea.
And the horse on the mountain.
James Godde
J.R.R. Tolkien
“The Mewlips”
The Shadows where the Mewlips dwell
Are dark and wet as ink,
And slow and softly rings their bell,
As in the slime you sink.
You sink into the slime, who dare
To knock upon their door,
While down the grinning gargoyles stare
And noisome waters pour.
Beside the rotting river-strand
The drooping willows weep,
And gloomily the gorcrows stand
Croaking in their sleep.
Translation by William Logan
Over the Merlock Mountains a long and weary way,
In a mouldy valley where the trees are grey,
By a dark pool's borders without wind or tide,
Moonless and sunless, the Mewlips hide.
The cellars where the Mewlips sit
Are deep and dank and cold
With single sickly candle lit;
And there they count their gold.
Their walls are wet, their ceilings drip;
Their feet upon the floor
Go softly with a squish-flap-flip,
As they sidle to the door.
16
Annika Hagley
Ani DiFranco
“Bodily”
They peep out slyly; through a crack
Their feeling fingers creep,
And when they've finished, in a sack
Your bones they take to keep.
You broke me bodily
The heart ain't the half of it
And I'll never learn to laugh at it
In my good natured way
In fact I'm laughing less in general
But I learned a lot at my own funeral
And I knew you'd be the death of me
So I guess that's the price I pay
Beyond the Merlock Mountains, a long and lonely road,
Through the spider-shadows and the marsh of Tode,
And through the wood of hanging trees and gallows-weed,
You go to find the Mewlips - and the Mewlips feed.
I'm trying to make new memories
In cities where we fell in love
My head just barely above
The darkest water I've ever known
You had me in that cage
You had me jumpin through those hoops for you
Still, I think I'd stoop for you
Stoop for your eyes alone
From that bomb shell moon in yet another lovely dress
To the deep mahogany sheen of a roach
I am trying to take an appreciative approach
To life in your wake
I focus on the quiet now
And occasionally I'll fall asleep somehow
And emptiness has its solace
In that there's nothing left to take
17
Mark Willhardt
Craig Watson
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Sonnet XL
Elizabeth Bishop
“The Fish”
Loving you less than life, a little less
I caught a tremendous fish
and held him beside the boat
half out of water, with my hook
fast in a corner of his mouth.
He didn't fight.
He hadn't fought at all.
He hung a grunting weight,
battered and venerable
and homely. Here and there
his brown skin hung in strips
like ancient wallpaper,
and its pattern of darker brown
was like wallpaper:
shapes like full-blown roses
stained and lost through age.
He was speckled and barnacles,
fine rosettes of lime,
and infested
with tiny white sea-lice,
and underneath two or three
rags of green weed hung down.
While his gills were breathing in
the terrible oxygen
--the frightening gills,
fresh and crisp with blood,
that can cut so badly-I thought of the coarse white flesh
packed in like feathers,
Than bitter-sweet upon a broken wall
Or brush-wood smoke in autumn, I confess
I cannot swear I love you not at all.
For there is that about you in this light –
A yellow darkness, sinister of rain –
Which sturdily recalls my stubborn sight
To dwell on you, and dwell on you again.
And I am made aware of many a week
I shall consume, remembering in what way
Your brown hair grows about your brow and cheek,
And what divine absurdities you say:
Till all the world, and I, and surely you,
Will know I love you, whether or not I do.
18
the big bones and the little bones,
the dramatic reds and blacks
of his shiny entrails,
and the pink swim-bladder
like a big peony.
I looked into his eyes
which were far larger than mine
but shallower, and yellowed,
the irises backed and packed
with tarnished tinfoil
seen through the lenses
of old scratched isinglass.
They shifted a little, but not
to return my stare.
--It was more like the tipping
of an object toward the light.
I admired his sullen face,
the mechanism of his jaw,
and then I saw
that from his lower lip
--if you could call it a lip
grim, wet, and weaponlike,
hung five old pieces of fish-line,
or four and a wire leader
with the swivel still attached,
with all their five big hooks
grown firmly in his mouth.
A green line, frayed at the end
where he broke it, two heavier lines,
and a fine black thread
still crimped from the strain and snap
when it broke and he got away.
Like medals with their ribbons
frayed and wavering,
a five-haired beard of wisdom
trailing from his aching jaw.
I stared and stared
and victory filled up
the little rented boat,
from the pool of bilge
where oil had spread a rainbow
around the rusted engine
to the bailer rusted orange,
the sun-cracked thwarts,
the oarlocks on their strings,
the gunnels--until everything
was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow!
And I let the fish go.
19
Marlo Belschner
Lee McGaan
David Wright, for Richard Pacholski
“Lines on Retirement, after Reading Lear”
T. S. Eliot
“The Four Quartets: Burnt Norton”
Avoid storms. And retirement parties.
You can’t trust the sweetnesses your friends will
offer, when they really want your office,
which they’ll redecorate. Beware the still
untested pension plan. Keep your keys. Ask
for more troops than you think you’ll need. Listen
more to fools and less to colleagues. Love your
youngest child the most, regardless. Back to
storms: dress warm, take a friend, don’t eat the grass,
don’t stand near tall trees, and keep the yelling
down—the winds won’t listen, and no one will
see you in the dark. It’s too hard to hear
you over all the thunder. But you’re not
Lear, except that we can’t stop you from what
you’ve planned to do. In the end, no one leaves
the stage in character—we never see
the feather, the mirror held to our lips.
So don’t wait for skies to crack with sun. Feel
the storm’s sweet sting invade you to the skin,
the strange, sore comforts of the wind. Embrace
your children’s ragged praise and that of friends.
Go ahead, take it off, take it all off.
Run naked into tempests. Weave flowers
into your hair. Bellow at cataracts.
If you dare, scream at the gods. Babble as
if you thought words could save. Drink rain like cold
beer. So much better than making theories.
We’d all come with you, laughing, if we could.
I
Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden. My words echo
Thus, in your mind. ….
20
Petra Kuppinger
Theodor Fontane (1819-1898)
“Herr von Ribbeck auf Ribbeck im Havelland”
Herr von Ribbeck auf Ribbeck im Havelland,
Ein Birnbaum in seinem Garten stand,
Und kam die goldene Herbsteszeit
Und die Birnen leuchteten weit und breit,
Da stopfte, wenn's Mittag vom Turme scholl,
Der von Ribbeck sich beide Taschen voll.
Und kam in Pantinen ein Junge daher,
So rief er: »Junge, wiste 'ne Beer?«
Und kam ein Mädel, so rief er: »Lütt Dirn,
Kumm man röwer, ick hebb 'ne Birn.«
V
Words move, music moves
Only in time; but that which is only living
Can only die. Words, after speech, reach
Into the silence. Only by the form, the pattern,
Can words or music reach
The stillness, as a Chinese jar still
Moves perpetually in its stillness.
Not the stillness of the violin, while the note lasts,
Not that only, but the co-existence,
Or say that the end precedes the beginning,
And the end and the beginning were always there
Before the beginning and after the end.
And all is always now. Words strain,
Crack and sometimes break, under the burden,
Under the tension, slip, slide, perish,
Will not stay still. Shrieking voices
Scolding, mocking, or merely chattering,
Always assail them. The Word in the desert
Is most attacked by voices of temptation,
The crying shadow in the funeral dance,
The loud lament of the disconsolate chimera.
So ging es viel Jahre, bis lobesam
Der von Ribbeck auf Ribbeck zu sterben kam.
Er fühlte sein Ende. 's war Herbsteszeit,
Wieder lachten die Birnen weit und breit;
Da sagte von Ribbeck: »Ich scheide nun ab.
Legt mir eine Birne mit ins Grab.«
Und drei Tage drauf, aus dem Doppeldachhaus,
Trugen von Ribbeck sie hinaus,
Alle Bauern und Büdner mit Feiergesicht
Sangen »Jesus meine Zuversicht«,
Und die Kinder klagten, das Herze schwer:
»He is dod nu. Wer giwt uns nu 'ne Beer?«
So klagten die Kinder. Das war nicht recht Ach, sie kannten den alten Ribbeck schlecht;
Der neue freilich, der knausert und spart,
Hält Park und Birnbaum strenge verwahrt.
Aber der alte, vorahnend schon
Und voll Mißtrauen gegen den eigenen Sohn,
Der wußte genau, was er damals tat,
Als um eine Birn' ins Grab er bat,
21
Und im dritten Jahr aus dem stillen Haus
Ein Birnbaumsprößling sproßt heraus.
Erika Solberg
“One Year Barbara Was a Cowgirl and Eddie Was a Cow”
Und die Jahre gehen wohl auf und ab,
Längst wölbt sich ein Birnbaum über dem Grab,
Und in der goldenen Herbsteszeit
Leuchtet's wieder weit und breit.
Und kommt ein Jung' übern Kirchhof her,
So flüstert's im Baume: »Wiste 'ne Beer?«
Und kommt ein Mädel, so flüstert's: »Lütt Dirn,
Kumm man röwer, ick gew' di 'ne Birn.«
I hate Halloween.
So typical of Monmouth
where you can’t sneeze
on Monday
without the sister of your neighbor’s friend’s son’s mom saying,
“I hear you’re sick”
on Tuesday.
The sky here billows out
forever
and the fields skim out to beyond
your vision,
but the people
psychically cram
themselves together,
a tumble of tools in a drawer,
til you’re wedged in at some reception
between two colleagues
mean mugging each other
as you smoosh the cheese into your cracker
and speedtalk inanities
because you can’t yell at them,
“Get over it and like each other again!”
without starting a whole new riot.
So spendet Segen noch immer die Hand
Des von Ribbeck auf Ribbeck im Havelland.
I hate Halloween
when I plop myself on my porch
and drop sugar in the bags of SuperMarios
and Edvard Munch-faced frights
who mumble Trick or Treat
and teeter down the steps,
the clots of kids so fast
I give up trying to read in between feedings.
22
It's true that maybe that day
I stood under my gingko tree
and laughed
because leaves as yellow as corn
sprinkled me like steady rain.
But I hate Halloween.
I am not the Ogorzaleks,
who test each mechanized vampire,
map each ghost footprint
day by day through October
til on the last night the yard howls
with beckoning skeletons
and Frankenstein monsters breathe smoke
and kids scamper down our street to See that! Look there!
The next morning each bone and coffin
is tucked away til next year
except
for the red bat
blinking in the attic window
wing by wing.
And it’s true when I bought
my candy at ShopKo,
I saw that great mom from years ago at Playgroup
and Caroline Buban -- who’s off to college next year can you believe it? -and the church member who clobbered breast cancer rang me up,
and we all complained
how nice if we had a Target but
at least we have a Walgreens though
I remember Zimmer’s Apothecary where
once I bought $6000 worth of drugs
to do IVF and later
rolled my stroller full of baby through the door
stupefied by the happiness
of babyspit and tiny fat feet –
like somehow a trip to ShopKo
is supposed to remind me
my beat is part
of the Monmouth rhythm too.
I don’t care about the glazed-eyed babies
swaddled up as sheep and peapods
whose parents are inflated
by the joy of Our First Halloween!
the same way it ballooned
up in me and Rob
the year he danced
with Barbara in her ladybug costume
in Marlo’s kitchen.
I don’t care about Gael and Addy and Chloe and Keshawn
who big-eyed exclaim, “Your Eddie’s mom!” “Your Barbara’s mom!”
from their Hulked or cheerleadered bodies.
Or Vivian hiding in the bushes
to help boys zipline
fake bats across the porch.
Or each year Emma Willhardt
twirled around
in a new, homemade princess dress.
23
All these kids who have transformed –
Zane from the big belly on Amy sweating on Meeker’s porch
to a crazy-legged drumming writer -Hamid Tala Hassan Benoit Mima Henry Bella Gareth Finn Alex Haley
Xander Nate -and all the others
who’ve marked my years with stretching bones
retoothed mouths -their selves likes waves rolling
toward the grownup world and pulling
back to their mysterious realms
then rolling in again,
Halloween a marker buoy in the channel.
the “how’s-it-going”s in the Wallace basement
tie together into this:
that I hate Halloween
but
the bombs can go off
at any time
and people rush in.
I hate the whole night.
Like the year we left
the dogs in the yard
and after our usual stops
people were at our house
talking in forced-calm voices -the dogs had gotten
loose – Briscoe was
hit -- Trudi’d cursed in front
of our minister’s
wife – Clay had hefted
Louie inside –
a neighbor I barely spoke
to and a friend I sometimes
didn’t like had taken my sweet,
sweet dog to Kirkwood.
My neighbor stayed with me through the x-rays,
and my friend drove me home
with my broken but wagging dog.
How can an awful night
be the one you remember with love
because people rushed in,
because the “hi”s at Midwest Bank,
the “hey-there”s at the Blues Fest,
But when the explosions come,
the person you quarreled with
holds the casserole on your front steps.
The one you got drunk with
covers you class.
The one who recommended your gynecologist
sorts the mail you cannot bear to touch.
People rush in,
These tentacles of people and town grapple me.
I cannot pull free
of so much backstory,
so many mistakes forgiven and forgived.
I gasp for air free of who did what when and why.
and though there is a radiance
in the stranger rescuing you from the fire,
what beauty too in knowing
the faces of the ones who care.
I can wear no mask that will conceal me here,
and what a drag sometimes -but what a glory too.
24
Rev. Dr. B Kathleen Fannin
“ALONE”
Luz Schick
“My Mother’s Garden”
Night crashed down, with pounding rain
on wounded men who lay alone
among the dead; pushed them down
on hard, cold ground where dead men lay
like used up clay, alone; between
the lines of men who’d spent all day
flinging death across torn earth
and shattered woods, near a church
called Shiloh.
1.
My mother never had a garden where we lived—
Six-room apartments on Chicago’s west side
Always renters, we lived by the seal
Stamped on our passports in fading ink
Turistas, from Mexico, going back there someday
Why put down roots? Why buy, even if we could?
Even if we had
The money
The papers
The ease with such things
Night, ripped with screams of shot and shell—
and dying men who lay alone;
left for dead, among the dead—
night smashed them down like broken stones.
The last night some would ever know
pounded men afraid, alone,
as nightborn winds rained death across
a bloody field between the lines
at Shiloh.
When there, in the brown earth of our eyes
In the trembling ground of our hearts
Mexico grew
Old, twisted vine
Fragrant mess of thorns and blooms
Mexico—
In the back
In the depths
Of our walled
Secret selves
Mexico was my mother’s garden
Tended nightly as she stood before her altar
Searching the faces of her saints
Her mother’s portrait on the wall
Mexico
The Battle of Shiloh, Tennessee occurred April 6-7, 1862. Confederate forces (under
General Albert Sidney Johnston) attacked Union troops (commanded by General
Ulysses S. Grant) who were guarding Pittsburg Landing on the Tennessee River.
There were 23,000 casualties, making it the bloodiest battle in American history up
to this time.
25
I stab at the creeping Charlie
Get on my knees to shovel
Below the roots
Put my back into it
To bring them up clean
Praying to San Ramón Nonato, her favorite
For some of the gold coins
In that bag at his feet
For Immigration never to find us
Mexico
They barely fight, those little roots
They’re barely there, little thread fingers
Grabbing the ground half-heartedly
Just at the surface
As if they knew their place, their fate
Prayers every night until she couldn’t stand
The weight too much
The varicose veins spreading, gnarled blue stems
Then prayers as she sat at the edge of the bed
White-haired, weary, lost in thought
But sometimes there’s a weed
Whose root goes deep
Points straight in the ground
Like an arrow
Quivering for its mark
2.
Lo que no logro entender, she once told me
When she was no longer herself, when she no longer remembered
Es cómo llegué a dar aquí.
What I just don’t get
Is how I ended up here
This one fights
This one will not give
For a long time
A long time
Until it does
This spoken amiably
As if it were an idle puzzle
This shared with me, now a stranger to her
Now the nice woman—nurse, hospice worker, one of those—
Keeping her company, tending to her
Then I lose my balance
Fall back baptized in dirt
Stare at the strange
Pale twist
In my hands
3.
Today is Mother’s Day and in my garden
The blue sky vaults
Warm wind swells
Over buds bursting, ferns fiddling
From the rich country soil
26
Thick and wide at the top
Then thinning but never weakening
Never ceasing to probe
For water
For source
Benjamin Eaton
“Island Number 10”
The clouds split the Mississippi River—
gray stones flinch underneath.
The river illumes redgloss-stumps
and moss-bark, both blossomed under
flowing boulders and branches,
each scratching shoreline coasts.
And I feel something opening
From the fist of my heart
Plunging through darkness, soaring to light
Something ancient and arching
Remembered, revering
Thatches and slabs and mildew scabs
crash-crescendo down banks,
flooding with twigs that decimate
the thrushes’ canebrakes
and stock piles by river basins
under undisturbed beds of the dead.
Sharing the life that is still but not stilled
In my dirt-stained hands
Like what an Indian hunter feels
For the deer he kills
Like I should pray
Beneath the carnage a slow walleye
battles for inches, a sturgeon swims
with the strong current, a large mouth
bass bouts, and the muscle hugs
unnoticed, as the currents strength
forces another shad to perish.
27
Joe Angotti
Rocket man burning out his fuse up here alone
And I think it's gonna’ be a long, long time.
Arica Brazil
“Something Close to Home”
When the wind changed, it didn’t mean much
Walking through the snow, and the sleet, and the sunshine
Undifferentiated.
The buildings kept climbing up, and we kept plummeting down
Gypcrete and glass
Each one more eager to interrupt heaven
Each one more shiny and slick;
Secreting an electric sludge.
It’s been a long, long time
But everything was too busy looking up.
Books became rocks,
Rocks became sidewalks,
Advanced into something…
Wind pipes creeping up on plastic matrix.
Rocket man burning out his fuse up here alone
And I think it's gonna’ be a long. long time.
The buildings kept climbing up, and we kept plummeting down
Steel and sand
Each one more willing to interrupt heaven
Each one more complex and copied;
Unions loved the sites.
The bad and the new bad
The sad and the new sad
Recalling nothing remembered
Linking the world through landlines,
And bloodlines became shorelines;
Bled out.
28
Rachael Laing
“The Necromancer”
When I raised you from the dead you came back different.
You couldn't speak through your collapsed throat,
and the breath intake through your punctured lung was ragged.
Your eyes were more wild, like you had seen things and wanted to see more, a renewed
love for life in death (how interesting).
Hands, bloody and worn after crawling your way up through the ground.
Did 6 feet feel like a lifetime, I wonder?
Did the roots snake through your veins when your body had begun to sink into the dirt?
You seem lost, walking around in the memory of a former life,
but you smile more often,
and the sun shines brighter,
and I said you came back different.
Not worse.
29