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The pennycandystore beyond the El -- Lawrence Ferlinghetti

(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!
-- 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
-- Don Marquis

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.
-- Richard Wilbur

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. 
-- Pat Schneider

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.
-- Naomi Shihab Nye

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.
-- Theodore Roethke

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.
-- Donald Hall

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.
-- Jeffrey McDaniel

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.
-- Sarah Williams