Wilfred Owen (1893-1918),
Dulce Et Decorum Est
ENGL 2030—Summer 2013 | Lavery
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.
GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.-Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
Wilfred Owen,
Dulce Et Decorum Est
ENGL 2030—Summer 2013 | Lavery
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,-My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
ENGL 2030—Summer 2013 | Lavery
Wilfred Owen,
Dulce Et Decorum Est
Randall Jarrell (1914-1965)
The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner
From my mother’s
sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.
Dorothy Parker
(1893-1967)
Unfortunate Coincidence
By the time you swear you're his,
Shivering and sighing,
And he vows his passion is
Infinite, undying Lady, make a note of this:
One of you is lying.
Résumé
Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.
Last week a doctor told me
anemic after an operation
to eat: ordered to indulgence
given a papal dispensation to run
amok in Zabar's.
Yet I know that in
two weeks, a month I
will have in my nostrils
Marge Piercy,
Beauty I Would Suffer For
ENGL 2030—Summer 2013 | Lavery
ENGL 2030—Summer 2013 | Lavery
not the savor of rendering goosefat,
not the burnt sugar of caramel topping
the Saint-Honore cake, not the pumpernickel
bearing up the sweet butter, the sturgeon
but again the scorched wire,
burnt rubber smell
of willpower, living
with the brakes on.
Marge Piercy,
Beauty I Would Suffer For
ENGL 2030—Summer 2013 | Lavery
I want to pass into the boudoirs
of Rubens' women. I want to dance
graceful in my tonnage like Poussin nymphs.
Those melon bellies, those vast ripening thighs,
those featherbeds of forearms, those buttocks
placid and gross as hippopotami:
Marge Piercy,
Beauty I Would Suffer For
ENGL 2030—Summer 2013 | Lavery
“placid and gross as hippopotami”
Marge Piercy,
Beauty I Would Suffer For
how I would bend myself
to that standard of beauty, how faithfully
would consume waffles and sausage for breakfast
with croissants on the side, how dutifully
I would eat for supper the blackbean soup
with madeira, followed by the fish course
the meat course, and the Bavarian cream.
Even at intervals during the day I would
suffer an occasional eclair
for the sake of appearance.
Marge Piercy,
Beauty I Would Suffer For
ENGL 2030—Summer 2013 | Lavery
X. J. Kennedy
ENGL 2030—Summer 2013 | Lavery
In a Prominent Bar in Secaucus, NJ
In a prominent bar in Secaucus one day
Rose a lady in skunk with a top-heavy sway,
Raised a knobby red finger - all turned from their beer-While with eyes bright as snowcrust she sang high and clear.
“Now who of you'd think from an eyeload of me
That I once was a lady as proud as can be?
Oh I'd never sit down by a tumble-down drunk
If it wasn't, my dears, for the high cost of junk.
All the gents used to swear that the white of my calf
Beat the down of a swan by a length and a half.
In the kerchief of linen I caught to my nose
Ah, there never fell snot, but a little gold rose.
Kennedy, “In a Prominent Bar”
I had seven gold teeth and a toothpick of gold.
My Virginia cheroot was a leaf of it rolled
And I'd light it each time with a thousand in cash-Why the bums used to fight if I flicked them an ash.
Once the toast of the Biltmore, the belle of the Taft,
I would drink bottle beer at the Drake, never draft,
And dine at the Astor on Salisbury Steak
With a clean table cloth for each bite I would take.
In a car like the Roxy, I'd roll to the track
A steel-guitar trio, a bar in the back,
And the wheels made no noise, they turned ever so fast,
Still it took you ten minutes to see me go past.
ENGL 2030—Summer 2013 | Lavery
Kennedy, “In a Prominent Bar”
When the horses bowed down to me that I might
choose,
I bet on them all for I hated to lose.
Now I'm saddled each night for my butter and eggs
And the broken threads race down the backs of my legs.
Let you hold in mind girls that your beauty must pass
Like a lovely white clover that rusts with its grass.
Keep your bottoms off bar stools and marry you young
Or be left an old barrel with many a bung.
For when time takes you out for a spin in his car
You'll be hard-pressed to stop him from going too far
And be left by the roadside, for all your good deeds,
Two toadstools for tits and a face full of weeds.”
ENGL 2030—Summer 2013 | Lavery
Kennedy, “In a Prominent Bar”
All the house raised a cheer, but the man at the bar
Made a phone call and up pulled a red patrol car
And she blew us a kiss as they copped her away
From that prominent bar in Secaucus NJ
ENGL 2030—Summer 2013 | Lavery
Sara Teasdale (1884-1933)
There Will Come Soft Rains
There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;
And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white;
Robins will wear their feathery fire,
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;
And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.
Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,
If mankind perished utterly;
And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn
Would scarcely know that we were gone.
ENGL 2030—Summer 2013 | Lavery