English 11 Lit.
UNIT 3: POETRY (SET 2)
“The Revenant,” by Billy Collins
I am the dog you put to sleep,
as you like to call the needle of oblivion,
come back to tell you this simple thing:
I never liked you--not one bit.
When I licked your face,
I thought of biting off your nose.
When I watched you toweling yourself dry,
I wanted to leap and unman you with a snap.
I resented the way you moved,
your lack of animal grace,
the way you would sit in a chair and eat,
a napkin on your lap, knife in your hand.
I would have run away,
but I was too weak, a trick you taught me
while I was learning to sit and heel,
and--greatest of insults--shake hands without a hand.
I admit the sight of the leash
would excite me
but only because it meant I was about
to smell things you had never touched.
You do not want to believe this,
but I have no reason to lie.
I hated the car, the rubber toys,
disliked your friends and, worse, your relatives.
The jingling of my tags drove me mad.
You always scratched me in the wrong place.
All I ever wanted from you
was food and fresh water in my metal bowls.
While you slept, I watched you breathe
as the moon rose in the sky.
It took all my strength
not to raise my head and howl.
Now I am free of the collar,
the yellow raincoat, monogrammed sweater,
the absurdity of your lawn,
and that is all you need to know about this place
except what you already supposed
and are glad it did not happen sooner-that everyone here can read and write,
the dogs in poetry, the cats and the others in prose.
1
English 11 Lit.
UNIT 3: POETRY (SET 2)
“Miniver Cheevy,” by Edwin Arlington Robinson
Miniver Cheevy, child of scorn,
Grew lean while he assailed the seasons;
He wept that he was ever born,
And he had reasons.
Miniver loved the days of old
When swords were bright and steeds were prancing;
The vision of a warrior bold
Would set him dancing.
Miniver sighed for what was not,
And dreamed, and rested from his labors;
He dreamed of Thebes and Camelot,
And Priam's neighbors.
Miniver mourned the ripe renown
That made so many a name so fragrant;
He mourned Romance, now on the town,
And Art, a vagrant.
Miniver loved the Medici,
Albeit he had never seen one;
He would have sinned incessantly
Could he have been one.
Miniver cursed the commonplace
And eyed a khaki suit with loathing;
He missed the mediæval grace
Of iron clothing.
Miniver scorned the gold he sought,
But sore annoyed was he without it;
Miniver thought, and thought, and thought,
And thought about it.
Miniver Cheevy, born too late,
Scratched his head and kept on thinking;
Miniver coughed, and called it fate,
And kept on drinking.
2
English 11 Lit.
UNIT 3: POETRY (SET 2)
“Never Daytime,” by Tim Seibles
People don’t like to think about their organs, about
what’s happening exactly inside the old abdominal walls.
I mean, it’s never daytime in there.
The germs, the sly toxins
getting together, moving around
Think about it: the heart preening and flexing itself
always in the pitch black.
And your blood never knows how candy-apple red it is
until you hurt yourself. Too late then.
And the big, scary lungs
sucking on the big, invisible air,
pulling it down into the basement, roughing it up,
then shoving it back upstairs.
No one wants to imagine what’s going on--really-with their vitals, which one is feeling
just a little bit down in the mouth
Or maybe a tad cancerous
or a little like just calling it quits: the liver? the kidneys?
some clogged tubal something in the reproductive stuff?
Once you’re born, look at all the trouble you can have.
Sometimes there are shows on television that show what it looks like in there.
Some tiny camera poking around
or the body sliced open
for a team of surgeons
like a ripe melon at a party.
And it’s all gooey and nasty-lookin and squishy.
Your giblets. On parade.
Your organs, like a club of deviants, found
rubbing up against each other with the lights off.
There’s never any real supervision.
It’s easier not thinking about it--of course, it is.
Suppose you had dear, dear relatives living in a town where
Baker 3
English 11 Lit.
UNIT 3: POETRY (SET 2)
it was midnight all the time--and say you knew
criminals wandered the streets with switchblades and
nothing better to do-The things that could happen. The bad chances swarming
like a ticked-off buncha’ bees.
At first, you would worry all the time, every minute: Poor Drusilla!
Hold on, Uncle Chuck! You couldn’t sleep. You wouldn’t taste your food.
Then, you’d have to kinda forget about them. It’d just be too much.
What about your gizzards right now, keeping you in the game-but why
why should they? What kind of life do they have?
The intestines. You got a set workin 24-7
holding, handling, moving
what you don’t even want a whiff of. And it goes on and on.
Sorry. No gloves or aerosols or vacations for the chitlins.
Better not think about it.
Better think about stuff you can fold up or dry-clean.
Otherwise, your mind’ll get all out of control.
“Let It Enfold You,” by Charles Bukowski
either peace or happiness,
let it enfold you
when I was a young man
I felt these things were
dumb, unsophisticated.
I had bad blood, a twisted
mind, a precarious
upbringing.
I was hard as granite. I
leered at the
sun.
I trusted no man and
especially no
woman.
I was living a hell in
small rooms. I broke
things, smashed things,
walked through glass,
cursed.
I challenged everything,
was continually being
evicted, jailed, in and
out of fights, in and out
of my mind.
women were something
to lust after and rail
at. I had no male
friends,
I changed jobs and
cities. I hated holidays,
babies, history,
newspapers, museums,
grandmothers,
marriage, movies,
spiders, garbagemen,
english accents, spain,
Baker 4
English 11 Lit.
france, italy, walnuts and
the color
orange.
algebra angered me,
opera sickened me,
charlie chaplin was a
fake,
and flowers were for
pansies.
peace and happiness to me
were signs of
inferiority,
tenants of the weak
and
addled
mind.
but as I went on with
my alley fights,
my suicidal years,
my passage through
any number of
women--it gradually
began to occur to
me
that I wasn't different
from the
others, I was the same.
they were all fulsome
with hatred,
glossed over with petty
grievances.
the men I fought in
alleys had hearts of stone.
everybody was nudging,
inching, cheating for
some insignificant
advantage.
the lie was the
weapon and the
plot was
empty.
darkness was the
dictator.
cautiously, I allowed
myself to feel good
UNIT 3: POETRY (SET 2)
at times.
I found moments of
peace in cheap
rooms
just staring at the
knobs of some
dresser
or listening to the
rain in the
dark.
the less I needed
the better I
felt.
maybe the other life had worn me
down.
I no longer found
glamour
in topping somebody
in conversation,
or in taking
advantage of some poor
drunken female
whose life had
slipped away into
sorrow.
I could never accept
life as it was,
I could never gobble
down all its
poisons
but there were parts,
tenuous magic parts
open for the
asking.
I reformulated.
I don't know when,
date, time, all
that,
but the change
occured.
something in me
relaxed, smoothed
out.
I no longer had to
prove that i was a
man,
Baker 5
English 11 Lit.
UNIT 3: POETRY (SET 2)
I didn’t have to prove
anything.
I am sorry for him.
he is caught.
I began to see things:
coffe cups lined up
behind a counter in a
cafe.
or a dog walking along
a sidewalk.
or the way the mouse
on my dresser top
stopped there
with its body,
its ears,
its nose.
it was fixed,
a bit of life
caught within itself
and its eyes looked
at me
and they were
beautiful.
then--it was
gone.
I walk onto the blazing
sunshine.
the whole day is
mine-temporarily,
anyhow.
I began to feel good,
I began to feel good
in the worst situations
and there were plenty
of those.
like say, the boss
behind his desk.
he is going to have
to fire me.
I've missed too many
days.
he is dressed in a
suit, necktie, glasses.
he says, "I am going
to have to let you go."
"it's all right," I tell
him.
he must do what he
must do. he has a
wife, a house, children,
expenses, most probably
a girlfriend.
Baker 6
(the whole world is at the
throat of the world.
everybody feels angry,
short-changed, cheated.
everybody is despondent,
disillusioned.)
I welcomed shots of
peace, tattered shards of
happiness.
I embraced that stuff
like the hottest number,
like high heels,
singing,
the works.
(don’t get me wrong,
there is such a thing as cockeyed optimism
that overlooks all
basic problems just for
the sake of
itself-this is a shield and a
sickness.)
the knife got near my
throat again.
I almost turned on the
gas
again
but when the good
moments arrived
again
I didn’t fight them off
like an alley
adversary.
I let them take me,
I luxuriated in them,
I bade them welcome
English 11 Lit.
home.
I even looked into
the mirror
once, having thought
myself to be
ugly.
I now liked what
I saw, almost
handsome. yes,
a bit ripped and
ragged,
scars, lumps,
odd turns,
but all in all,
not too bad,
almost handsome,
better at least than
some of those movie
star faces
like the cheeks of
a baby’s
butt.
and finally I discovered
real feelings for
others,
unheralded,
like lately,
like this morning,
as I was leaving
for the track,
I saw my wife in bed,
just the
shape of
her head there
(not forgetting
centuries of the living
and the dead and
the dying,
the pyramids,
Mozart dead
but his music still
UNIT 3: POETRY (SET 2)
there in the
room, weeds growing,
the earth turning,
the toteboard waiting for
me)
I saw the shape of my
wife's head,
she so still.
I ached for her life,
just being there
under the
covers.
I kissed her in the
forehead,
got down the stairway,
got outside,
got into my marvelous
car,
fixed the seatbelt,
backed out the
drive,
feeling warm to
the fingertips,
down to my
foot on the gas
pedal.
I entered the world
once
more,
drove down the
hill
past the houses
full and empty
of
people.
I saw the mailman,
honked.
he waved
back
at me.
Baker 7
English 11 Lit.
UNIT 3: POETRY (SET 2)
“Lose Yourself,” by Eminem
His palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy
There's vomit on his sweater already, mom's spaghetti
He's nervous, but on the surface he looks calm and ready
To drop bombs, but he keeps on forgetting
What he wrote down, the whole crowd goes so loud
He opens his mouth, but the words won't come out
He's choking, how everybody's joking now
The clock's run out, time's up over, BLOAH!
Snap back to reality, Oh there goes gravity
Oh, there goes Rabbit, he
Choked, he's so mad, but he
Won't give up that easy,
No, he won't have it, he
Knows his whole back's to these
Ropes, it don't matter, he's
Dope, he knows that, but he's
Broke, he's so stagnant he
Knows when he goes back to his
Mobile home, that's when it's
Back to the lab again, yo
This whole rhapsody
He better go capture this moment
And hope it don't pass him
You better lose yourself in the music, the moment
You own it, you better never let it go
You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow
This opportunity comes once in a lifetime, yo.
The soul's escaping, through this hole that is gaping
This world is mine for the taking, make me king,
As we move toward a new world order
A normal life is boring, but superstardom's close to post mortem
It only grows harder, only grows hotter
He blows us all over these hoes is all on him
Coast to coast shows, he's know as the globetrotter
Lonely roads, God only knows
He's grown farther from home, he's no father
He goes home and barely knows his own daughter
But hold your nose cause here goes the cold water
His hoes don't want him no mo, he's cold product
They moved on to the next schmoe who flows
He nose dove and sold nada
So the soap opera is told and unfolds
I suppose it's old partner, but the beat goes on
Da da dum da dum da da
Baker 8
English 11 Lit.
UNIT 3: POETRY (SET 2)
You better lose yourself in the music, the moment
You own it, you better never let it go
You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow
This opportunity comes once in a lifetime yo
Baker 9