(Poem #36)The pennycandystore beyond the El The pennycandystore beyond the El
is where I first
fell in love
with unreality
Jellybeans glowed in the semi-gloom
of that september afternoon
A cat upon the counter moved among
the licorice sticks
and tootsie rolls
and Oh Boy Gum
Outside the leaves were falling as they died
A wind had blown away the sun
A girl ran in
Her hair was rainy
Her breasts were breathless in the little room
Outside the leaves were falling
and they cried
Too soon! too soon!
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The pennycandystore beyond the El -- Lawrence Ferlinghetti
archy interviews a pharaoh -- Don Marquis
(Poem #35)archy interviews a pharaoh boss i went and interviewed the mummy of the egyptian pharaoh in the metropolitan museum as you bade me to do what ho my regal leatherface says i greetings little scatter footed scarab says he kingly has been says i what was your ambition when you had any insignificant and journalistic insect says the royal crackling in my tender prime i was too dignified to have anything as vulgar as ambition the ra ra boys in the seti set were too haughty to be ambitious we used to spend our time feeding the ibises and ordering pyramids sent home to try on but if i had my life to live over again i would give dignity the regal razz and hire myself out to work in a brewery old tan and tarry says i i detect in your speech the overtones of melancholy yes i am sad says the majestic mackerel i am as sad as the song of a soudanese jackal who is wailing for the blood red moon he cannot reach and rip on what are you brooding with such a wistful wishfulness there in the silences confide in me my perial pretzel says i i brood on beer my scampering whiffle snoot on beer says he my sympathies are with your royal dryness says i my little pest says he you must be respectful in the presence of a mighty desolation little archy forty centuries of thirst look down upon you oh by isis and by osiris says the princely raisin and by pish and phthush and phthah by the sacred book perembru and all the gods that rule from the upper cataract of the nile to the delta of the duodenum i am dry i am as dry as the next morning mouth of a dissipated desert as dry as the hoofs of the camels of timbuctoo little fussy face i am as dry as the heart of a sand storm at high noon in hell i have been lying here and there for four thousand years with silicon in my esophagus as gravel in my gizzard thinking thinking thinking of beer divine drouth says i imperial fritter continue to think there is no law against that in this country old salt codfish if you keep quiet about it not yet what country is this asks the poor prune my reverend juicelessness this is a beerless country says i well well said the royal desiccation my political opponents back home always maintained that i would wind up in hell and it seems they had the right dope and with these hopeless words the unfortunate residuum gave a great cough of despair and turned to dust and debris right in my face it being the only time i ever actually saw anybody put the cough into sarcophagus dear boss as i scurry about i hear of a great many tragedies in our midsts personally i yearn for some dear friend to pass over and leave to me a boot legacy yours for the second coming of gambrinus archy |
Boy at the Window -- Richard Wilbur
(Poem #34)Boy at the Window Seeing the snowman standing all alone In dusk and cold is more than he can bear. The small boy weeps to hear the wind prepare A night of gnashings and enormous moan. His tearful sight can hardly reach to where The pale-faced figure with bitumen eyes Returns him such a god-forsaken stare As outcast Adam gave to Paradise. The man of snow is, nonetheless, content, Having no wish to go inside and die. Still, he is moved to see the youngster cry. Though frozen water is his element, He melts enough to drop from one soft eye A trickle of the purest rain, a tear For the child at the bright pane surrounded by Such warmth, such light, such love, and so much fear. |
Middle Age -- Pat Schneider
(Poem #33)Middle Age The child you think you don't want is the one who will make you laugh. She will break your heart when she loses the sight in one eye and tells the doctor she wants to be an apple tree when she grows up. It will be this child who forgives you again and again for believing you don't want her to be born, for resisting the rising tide of your body, for wishing for the red flow of her dismissal. She will even forgive you for all the breakfasts you failed to make exceptional. Someday this child will sit beside you. When you are old and too tired of war to want to watch the evening news, she will tell you stories like the one about her teenaged brother, your son, and his friends taking her out in a canoe when she was five years old. How they left her alone on an island in the river while they jumped off the railroad bridge. |
Rain -- Naomi Shihab Nye
(Poem #32)Rain A teacher asked Paul what he would remember from third grade, and he sat a long time before writing "this year somebody tutched me on the sholder" and turned his paper in. Later she showed it to me as an example of her wasted life. The words he wrote were large as houses in a landscape. He wanted to go inside them and live, he could fill in the windows of "o" and "d" and be safe while outside birds building nests in drainpipes knew nothing of the coming rain. |
The Meadow Mouse -- Theodore Roethke
(Poem #31)The Meadow Mouse 1
In a shoe box stuffed in an old nylon stocking
Sleeps the baby mouse I found in the meadow,
Where he trembled and shook beneath a stick
Till I caught him up by the tail and brought him in,
Cradled in my hand,
A little quaker, the whole body of him trembling,
His absurd whiskers sticking out like a cartoon-mouse,
His feet like small leaves,
Little lizard-feet,
Whitish and spread wide when he tried to struggle away,
Wriggling like a minuscule puppy.
Now he's eaten his three kinds of cheese and drunk from his
bottle-cap watering-trough--
So much he just lies in one corner,
His tail curled under him, his belly big
As his head; his bat-like ears
Twitching, tilting toward the least sound.
Do I imagine he no longer trembles
When I come close to him?
He seems no longer to tremble.
2
But this morning the shoe-box house on the back porch is empty.
Where has he gone, my meadow mouse,
My thumb of a child that nuzzled in my palm?--
To run under the hawk's wing,
Under the eye of the great owl watching from the elm-tree,
To live by courtesy of the shrike, the snake, the tom-cat.
I think of the nestling fallen into the deep grass,
The turtle gasping in the dusty rubble of the highway,
The paralytic stunned in the tub, and the water rising,--
All things innocent, hapless, forsaken.
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We Bring Democracy To The Fish -- Donald Hall
(Poem #30)We Bring Democracy To The Fish It is unacceptable that fish prey on each other. For their comfort and safety, we will liberate them into fishfarms with secure, durable boundaries that exclude predators. Our care will provide for their liberty, health, happiness, and nutrition. Of course all creatures need to feel useful. At maturity the fish will discover their purposes. |
The Quiet World -- Jeffrey McDaniel
(Poem #29)The Quiet World In an effort to get people to look into each other's eyes more, the government has decided to allot each person exactly one hundred and sixty-seven words, per day. When the phone rings, I put it to my ear without saying hello. In the restaurant I point at chicken noodle soup. I am adjusting well to the new way. Late at night, I call my long distance lover and proudly say I only used fifty-nine today. I saved the rest for you. When she doesn't respond, I know she's used up all her words so I slowly whisper I love you, thirty-two and a third times. After that, we just sit on the line and listen to each other breathe. |
The Old Astronomer -- Sarah Williams
(Poem #28)The Old Astronomer Reach me down my Tycho Brahe, -- I would know him when we meet, When I share my later science, sitting humbly at his feet; He may know the law of all things, yet be ignorant of how We are working to completion, working on from then till now. Pray, remember, that I leave you all my theory complete, Lacking only certain data, for your adding as is meet; And remember, men will scorn it, 'tis original and true, And the obloquy of newness may fall bitterly on you. But, my pupil, as my pupil you have learnt the worth of scorn; You have laughed with me at pity, we have joyed to be forlorn; What, for us, are all distractions of men's fellowship and smiles? What, for us, the goddess Pleasure, with her meretricious wiles? You may tell that German college that their honour comes too late. But they must not waste repentance on the grizzly savant's fate; Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light; I have loved the stars too truly to be fearful of the night. |