ALT 302- COURSE POEMS

Dust of Snow by Robert Frost The massive weight of Uncle's wedding band
The way a crow Sits heavily upon Aunt Jennifer's hand.
Shook down on me
The dust of snow When Aunt is dead, her terrified hands will lie
From a hemlock tree Still ringed with ordeals she was mastered by.
The tigers in the panel that she made
Has given my heart Will go on prancing, proud and unafraid.
A change of mood
And saved some part The Eagle by By Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Of a day I had rued. He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Photograph of My Father in His Twenty-Second Year Ring'd with the azure world, he stands.
By Raymond Carver
October. Here in this dank, unfamiliar kitchen The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
I study my father's embarrassed young man's face. He watches from his mountain walls,
Sheepish grin, he holds in one hand a string And like a thunderbolt he falls.
of spiny yellow perch, in the other
a bottle of Carlsbad Beer. Moon in the Bucket by Gabriel Okara
Look!
In jeans and denim shirt, he leans Look out there
against the front fender of a 1934 Ford. in the bucket
He would like to pose bluff and hearty for his posterity, the rusty bucket
Wear his old hat cocked over his ear. with water unclean
All his life my father wanted to be bold.
Look!
But the eyes give him away, and the hands
A luminous plate is floating -
that limply offer the string of dead perch
and the bottle of beer. Father, I love you, the Moon dancing to the gentle night wind
yet how can I say thank you, I who can't hold my liquor Look!all you who shout across the wall
either, with a million hates. Look at the dancing moon
and don't even know the places to fish? It is peace unsoiled by the murk
and dirt of this bucket war.

Mother To Son - by Langston Hughes

Much Madness is divinest Sense Well, son, I'll tell you:
By Emily Dickinson Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
Much Madness is divinest Sense - It's had tacks in it,
To a discerning Eye - And splinters,
Much Sense - the starkest Madness - And boards torn up,
’Tis the Majority And places with no carpet on the floor—
In this, as all, prevail - Bare.
Assent - and you are sane - But all the time
Demur - you’re straightway dangerous - I'se been a-climbin' on,
And handled with a Chain - And reachin' landin's,
And turnin' corners,
And sometimes goin' in the dark
Aunt Jennifer's Tigers by Adrienne Rich, Where there ain't been no light.
Aunt Jennifer's tigers prance across a screen, So, boy, don't you turn back.
Bright topaz denizens of a world of green. Don't you set down on the steps.
They do not fear the men beneath the tree; 'Cause you finds it's kinder hard.
They pace in sleek chivalric certainty. Don't you fall now—
For I'se still goin', honey,
Aunt Jennifer's finger fluttering through her wool I'se still climbin',
Find even the ivory needle hard to pull. And life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
 I gazed: her hair was like the wool of a mountain
sheep,
Naturally by Austin Bukenya Her eyes, a pair of brown - black beans floating in
I fear the workers: they writhe in bristling grass milk.
And wormy mud: out with dawn, back with dusk Juicy and round as plantain shoots
Depart with seed and return with fat-bursting fruit Her legs, arms and neck,
And I eat the fruit And like wine - gourds her pillowy breasts;
Her throat uttered fresh banana juice
And still they toil: at boiling point Matching her face - smooth and banana ripe
In head-splitting noise and threatening saws
They suck their energy from slimy cassava I touched - but long before I even tasted
And age-rusty taps: till they make a Benz My heart had flowed from me into her breast;
And then she went – High and South –
And I ride in the Benz: festooned And left my carcass roasting in the fire she’d lit
With striped rags and python copper coiling monsters
While the workers clap their blistered hands If We Must Die
And I overrun their brats By Claude McKay
If we must die, let it not be like hogs
They build their hives: often out Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
Of the broken bones of their mates: While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
And I drone in them – ‘state-house’ Making their mock at our accursèd lot.
Them, ‘collegize them, officialize them If we must die, O let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may not be shed
And I… I whore their daughters In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Raised in litter-rotting hovels Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!
And desiring a quickquick high-high lifelife O kinsmen! we must meet the common foe!
To break the bond Though far outnumbered let us show us brave,
And for their thousand blows deal one death-blow!
What though before us lies the open grave?
And I tell the workers to unite Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
Knowing well they can’t see hear or understand: Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!
What with sweat and grime sealing their ears
And eyes already blasted with wielding sparks
And me speaking a colourless tongue Renaissance Poetry
The Passionate Shepherd to His Love ,
But one day a rainstorm shall flood Christopher Marlowe's poem
The litter-rotten hovels 'COME live with me and be my Love,
And wash the workers’ eyes clean And we will all the pleasures prove
Refresh the tattered muscles for a long-delayed That hills and valleys, dale and field,
Blow And all the craggy mountains yield.

I Met a Thief - Austin Bukenya There will we sit upon the rocks
On the beach, on the Coast, And see the shepherds feed their flocks,
Under the idle, whispering coconut towers, By shallow rivers, to whose falls
Before the growling, foaming waves, Melodious birds sing madrigals.
I met a thief, who guessed I had
An innocent heart for her to steal. There will I make thee beds of roses
And a thousand fragrant posies,
She took my hand and led me under A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
The intimate cashew boughs which shaded Embroider'd all with leaves of myrtle;
The downy grass and peeping weeds.
She jumped and plucked the nuts for me to suck; A gown made of the finest wool
She sang and laughed and pressed close Which from our pretty lambs we pull;
Fair lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold;
 William Shakespeare
A belt of straw and ivy buds, Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
With coral clasps and amber studs: Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
And if these pleasures may thee move, Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
Come live with me, and be my love. And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
The shepherds' swains shall dance and sing And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
For thy delight each May morning: And every fair from fair sometime declines,
If these delights thy mind may move, By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed.
Then live with me and be my love. But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
A Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,
Sir Walter Raleigh When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,
'If all the world and love were young, So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
And truth in every shepherd's tongue, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
These pretty pleasures might me move
To live with thee and be thy love. Harlem -By Langston Hughes
What happens to a dream deferred?
Time drives the flocks from field to fold,
When rivers rage and rocks grow cold, Does it dry up
And Philomel becometh dumb; like a raisin in the sun?
The rest complains of cares to come.
Or fester like a sore—
The flowers do fade, and wanton fields And then run?
To wayward winter reckoning yields; Does it stink like rotten meat?
A honey tongue, a heart of gall, Or crust and sugar over—
Is fancy's spring, but sorrow's fall. like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of roses, like a heavy load.
Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies
Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten, Or does it explode?
In folly ripe, in reason rotten.'
Symbolist Poetry
"Come, My Celia" Sea Breeze - by Stéphane Mallarmé
Ben Jonson (1572-1637) The flesh is sad, Alas! and I have read all the books.
Come, my Celia, let us prove Let’s go! Far off. Let’s go! I sense
While we may, the sports of love; that the birds, intoxicated, fly
Time will not be ours forever; deep into unknown spume and sky!
He at length our good will sever. Nothing – not even old gardens mirrored by eyes –
Spend not then his gifts in vain. can restrain this heart that drenches itself in the sea,
Suns that set may rise again; O nights, or the abandoned light of my lamp,
But if once we lose this light, on the void of paper, that whiteness defends,
'Tis with us perpetual night. no, not even the young woman feeding her child.
Why should we defer our joys? I will go! Steamer, straining at your ropes
Fame and rumor are but toys lift your anchor towards an exotic rawness!
Cannot we delude the eyes A Boredom, made desolate by cruel hope
Of a few poor household spies, still believes in the last goodbye of handkerchiefs!
Or his easier ears beguile, And perhaps the masts, inviting lightning,
So removed by our wile? are those the gale bends over shipwrecks,
'Tis no sin love's fruit to steal lost, without masts, without masts, no fertile islands...
But the sweet theft to reveal. But, oh my heart, listen to the sailors’ chant!
To be taken, to be seen,
These have crimes accounted been. Imagist Poetry
Oread H.D
Sonnet 18: "Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Whirl up, sea -
Day?"
Whirl your pointed pines, my treason engendered by traitors beyond me,
Splash your great pines my life when they murder by means of my
On our rocks, hands, my death when they live me.
Hurl your green over us -
Cover us with your pools of fir. I am not yet born; rehearse me
In the parts I must play and the cues I must take when
The Red Wheelbarrow old men lecture me, bureaucrats hector me, mountains
William Carlos Williams - 1883-1963 frown at me, lovers laugh at me, the white
so much depends waves call me to folly and the desert calls
upon me to doom and the beggar refuses
a red wheel my gift and my children curse me.
barrow
I am not yet born; O hear me,
Let not the man who is beast or who thinks he is God
glazed with rain
come near me.
water
I am not yet born; O fill me
beside the white With strength against those who would freeze my
chickens humanity, would dragoon me into a lethal automaton,
would make me a cog in a machine, a thing with
This Is Just To Say by William Carlos Williams one face, a thing, and against all those
I have eaten who would dissipate my entirety, would
the plums blow me like thistledown hither and
that were in thither or hither and thither
the icebox like water held in the
hands would spill me.
and which
you were probably Let them not make me a stone and let them not spill
saving me.
for breakfast Otherwise kill me.

Forgive me O What Is That Sound

they were delicious WH Auden
so sweet O what is that sound which so thrills the ear
and so cold Down in the valley drumming, drumming?
Prayer Before Birth - by Louis Macneice Only the scarlet soldiers, dear,
I am not yet born; O hear me. The soldiers coming.
Let not the bloodsucking bat or the rat or the stoat or
the O what is that light I see flashing so clear
club-footed ghoul come near me. Over the distance brightly, brightly?
Only the sun on their weapons, dear,
I am not yet born, console me. As they step lightly.
I fear that the human race may with tall walls wall me,
with strong drugs dope me, with wise lies lure me, O what are they doing with all that gear,
on black racks rack me, in blood-baths roll me. What are they doing this morning, morning?
Only their usual manoeuvres, dear,
I am not yet born; provide me Or perhaps a warning.
With water to dandle me, grass to grow for me, trees
to talk O why have they left the road down there,
to me, sky to sing to me, birds and a white light Why are they suddenly wheeling, wheeling?
in the back of my mind to guide me. Perhaps a change in their orders, dear,
Why are you kneeling?
I am not yet born; forgive me
For the sins that in me the world shall commit, my O haven't they stopped for the doctor's care,
words Haven't they reined their horses, horses?
when they speak me, my thoughts when they think me, Why, they are none of them wounded, dear,
 None of these forces. Little—less—nothing!—and that ended it.
No more to build on there. And they, since they
O is it the parson they want, with white hair, Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.
Is it the parson, is it, is it?
No, they are passing his gateway, dear,
Without a visit.
The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost
O it must be the farmer that lives so near. Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
It must be the farmer so cunning, so cunning? And sorry I could not travel both
They have passed the farmyard already, dear, And be one traveler, long I stood
And now they are running. And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
O where are you going? Stay with me here!
Were the vows you swore deceiving, deceiving? Then took the other, as just as fair,
No, I promised to love you, dear, And having perhaps the better claim,
But I must be leaving. Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
O it's broken the lock and splintered the door, Had worn them really about the same,
O it's the gate where they're turning, turning;
Their boots are heavy on the floor And both that morning equally lay
And their eyes are burning. In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
“Out, Out—” by Robert Frost Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
THE BUZZ-SAW snarled and rattled in the yard I doubted if I should ever come back.
And made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of
wood, I shall be telling this with a sigh
Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it. Somewhere ages and ages hence:
And from there those that lifted eyes could count Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
Five mountain ranges one behind the other I took the one less traveled by,
Under the sunset far into Vermont. And that has made all the difference.
And the saw snarled and rattled, snarled and rattled,
As it ran light, or had to bear a load.
And nothing happened: day was all but done. Salute to the Elephants (Ijala’s hunter’s chant)
Call it a day, I wish they might have said 10 O elephant, possessor of a savings-basket full of
To please the boy by giving him the half hour money
That a boy counts so much when saved from work.
O elephant, huge as a hill, even in a crouching
His sister stood beside them in her apron
To tell them “Supper.” At the word, the saw, posture.
As if to prove saws knew what supper meant, 15 O elephant, enfolded by honour; demon flapping fans
Leaped out at the boy’s hand, or seemed to leap— of war.
He must have given the hand. However it was, Demon who snaps tree branches into many pieces and
Neither refused the meeting. But the hand! moves on the forest farm.
The boy’s first outcry was a rueful laugh, O elephant, who ignores “I have fled to my father for
As he swung toward them holding up the hand 20
refuge”,
Half in appeal, but half as if to keep
The life from spilling. Then the boy saw all— Let alone “to my mother”.
Since he was old enough to know, big boy Mountainous Animal, Huge Beast who tears a man
Doing a man’s work, though a child at heart— like a garment
He saw all spoiled. “Don’t let him cut my hand off— 25 And hangs him up on a tree.
The doctor, when he comes. Don’t let him, sister!” The sight of whom causes people to stampede towards
So. But the hand was gone already. a hill of safety.
The doctor put him in the dark of ether.
My chant is salute to the elephant.
He lay and puffed his lips out with his breath.
And then—the watcher at his pulse took fright. 30 Ajanaku who walks with a heavy tread.
No one believed. They listened at his heart.
Demon who swallows palm-fruit bunches whole, even The whiskey on your breath
with the spiky pistil-cells. Could make a small boy dizzy;
O elephant, praise named Laaye, massive animal, But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.
blackish-grey in complexion.
O elephant, who single-handed causes tremor in a We romped until the pans
dense tropical forest. Slid from the kitchen shelf;
O elephant, who stands sturdy and alert, who walks My mother’s countenance
slowly as if reluctantly. Could not unfrown itself.
The hunter’s boast at home is not repeated before the
elephant. The hand that held my wrist
Was battered on one knuckle;
The hunter’s boast at home is not repeated before the
At every step you missed
elephant. My right ear scraped a buckle.
Ajanaku looks back with difficulty like a person
suffering from a sprained neck. You beat time on my head
The elephant has a porters’ knot without having any With a palm caked hard by dirt,
load on his head. Then waltzed me off to bed
The elephant’s head is his burden which he balances. Still clinging to your shirt.
Do not go gentle into that good night
O elephant, praise named Laaye, “O death, please stop
Dylan Thomas, 1914 - 1953
following me”. Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
When I see the beauty of my beloved’s face Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
(Acoli love poem)
When I see the beauty of my beloved’s face, Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
I throw away the food in my hand; Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Oh, sister of the young man, listen;
The beauty on my beloved’s face. Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Her neck is long, when in see it Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
I cannot sleep one wink;
Oh, the daughter of my mother-in-law, Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
Her neck of like the shaft of the spear. And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
When I touch the tattoos on her back, Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
I die. Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Oh, sister of the young man, listen; Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
The tattoos on my beloved’s face.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
When I see the gap on my beloved’s teeth,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Her teeth are white like dry season sismsim; Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Oh, daughter of my father-in-law, listen,
The gap in my beloved teeth.
When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer
The daughter of the bull confuses my head, By Walt Whitman
I have to marry her; When I heard the learn’d astronomer,
True, sister of the young man, listen; When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns
The suppleness of my beloved’s face. before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add,
divide, and measure them,
My Papa’s Waltz
By Theodore Roethke
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured "Now!", Angrily throwing the fuetazo,
with much applause in the lecture-room, howls brown. (The eyes are embers, lacks the voice
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself, and there is a devil in the body of Che Incarnation).
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, La NegraTomasa dodge punishment
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars. and mockingly launches offensive
and loud "No!"
The Party and becomes brave and shakes her rump
Jose Zacarias Tallet before the defeated Jose Encarnacion.
Zumba, Mom, rumba and tambó!
Mabimba, mabomba, mabomba and bomgó! Zumba, Mom, rumba and tambó!
Mabimba, mabomba, mabomba and bomgó!
Zumba, Mom, rumba and tambó!
Mabimba, mabomba, mabomba and bomgó! Chiming sticks,
maraca sounds,
How dances the rumba La NegraTomasa! hums the cruse
How dances the rumba Jose Encarnacion! bongo breaks.

She moves her leg, she moves the other, The heads are two dry coconuts
He stretches, shrinks, shoot the croup, I in any escribera with plaster,
belly shoot, crouch, walk, above, an umlaut, down a script.
on the one and the other heel. And the two bodies of the two black
are two mirrors with sweat.
Chaqui, chaqui, chaqui, charaqui!
Chaqui, chaqui, chaqui, charaqui! Chiming keys,
sounds the cruse,
Powerful legs girl Tomasa bongo breaks.
around an invisible axis,
like a pinwheel rotate with fury, Chaqui, chaqui, chaqui, chariqui!
challenging rhythmic, lubricious dislocate, Chaqui, chaqui, chaqui, chariqui!
the salacious attack Ché Incarnation:
doll rope, rigid body, Comes the climax, the dancers tremble
back bust in hacia'lante bow and you Chepebembé low Cachón;
abdomen and legs, shrunken arms and bongo breaks to go crazy,
equal jumps restless croup a girl Tomasa low will the Chango.
It is going in pursuit.
Piqui-ticky-pan, piqui-ticky-pan!
E'paso changes, Cheché; e'paso changes, Cheche. Piqui-ticky-pan, piqui-ticky-pan!
E'paso changes, Cheché; e'paso changes, Cheche.
Tomasa down the girl comes,
Tomasa black with lewd gesture, Jose Encarnacion down comes;
stealer hip, raises his head, and wallow there with a thousand contortions,
and raised arms, hands bound, they climb the saint, the bongo broke.
therein lies the neck ebónica The rumba is over with-with-co-Mabó!
and ribald, offers her full breasts, Pa-ca-ca pa, pa-ca-ca pa, pa-ca!
which, ranging from right hand to left, Bam! Bam! Bam!
Chepe dazzle Chacon.

Chaqui, chaqui, chaqui, charaqui! We Real Cool

Chaqui, chaqui, chaqui, charaqui! Gwendolyn Brooks, 1917 - 2000
THE POOL PLAYERS.
Frantic the black is released to assault SEVEN AT THE GOLDEN SHOVEL.
and the silk scarf in her hands, We real cool. We
It is preparing to mark the Tomasa black, Left school. We
that challenges him, insolent, with a good vacunao.
 Lurk late. We Speaking indifferently to him,
Strike straight. We who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
Sing sin. We What did I know, what did I know
Thin gin. We of love’s austere and lonely offices?

Jazz June. We Piano and Drums by Gabriel Okara

Die soon. When at break of day at a riverside
I hear the jungle drums telegraphing
Nightsong: City the mystic rhythm, urgent, raw
By Dennis Brutus like bleeding flesh, speaking of
Sleep well, my love, sleep well: primal youth and the beginning
the harbor lights glaze over restless docks, I see the panther ready to pounce
police cars cockroach through the tunnel streets; the leopard snarling about to leap
and the hunters crouch with spears poised;
from the shanties creaking iron-sheets And my blood ripples, turns torrent,
violence like a bug-infested rag is tossed topples the years and at once I’m
and fear is immanent* as sound in the wind-swung in my mother’s laps a suckling;
bell; at once I’m walking simple
paths with no innovations,
the long day’s anger pants from sand and rocks; rugged, fashioned with the naked
but for this breathing night at least, warmth of hurrying feet and groping hearts
my land, my love, sleep well. in green leaves and wild flowers pulsing.
Then I hear a wailing piano
Crumbling is not an instant's Act (1010) solo speaking of complex ways in
By Emily Dickinson tear-furrowed concerto;
of far away lands
Crumbling is not an instant's Act
and new horizons with
A fundamental pause coaxing diminuendo, counterpoint,
Dilapidation's processes crescendo. But lost in the labyrinth
Are organized Decays — of its complexities, it ends in the middle
of a phrase at a daggerpoint.
'Tis first a Cobweb on the Soul And I lost in the morning mist
A Cuticle of Dust of an age at a riverside keep
wandering in the mystic rhythm
A Borer in the Axis
of jungle drums and the concerto.
An Elemental Rust —
Africa by David Diop
Ruin is formal — Devil's work Africa my Africa
Consecutive and slow — Africa of proud warriors in ancestral savannahs
Fail in an instant, no man did Africa of whom my grandmother sings
Slipping — is Crashe's law — On the banks of the distant river
I have never known you
But your blood flows in my veins
Those Winter Sundays by Robert Hayden
Your beautiful black blood that irrigates the fields
Sundays too my father got up early
The blood of your sweat
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
The sweat of your work
then with cracked hands that ached
The work of your slavery
from labor in the weekday weather made
Africa, tell me Africa
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.
Is this your back that is unbent
This back that never breaks under the weight of
I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
humilation
When the rooms were warm, he’d call,
This back trembling with red scars
and slowly I would rise and dress,
And saying no to the whip under the midday sun
fearing the chronic angers of that house,
But a grave voice answers me
Impetuous child that tree, young and strong
That tree over there Before jealous fate turn you to ashes to
Splendidly alone amidst white and faded flowers feed the roots of life.
That is your Africa springing up anew
springing up patiently, obstinately
Whose fruit bit by bit acquires
The bitter taste of liberty. Night in Sine
Original language version: By Léopold Sédar Senghor
Translated By Melvin Dixon
Woman, place your soothing hands upon my brow,
Black Woman by - Leopold Senghor Your hands softer than fur.
Naked woman, black woman Above us balance the palm trees, barely rustling
In the night breeze. Not even a lullaby.
Clothed with your colour which is life, Let the rhythmic silence cradle us.
with your form which is beauty! Listen to its song. Hear the beat of our dark blood,
Hear the deep pulse of Africa in the mist of lost
In your shadow I have grown up; the villages.
gentleness of your hands was laid over my eyes.
Now sets the weary moon upon its slack seabed
And now, high up on the sun-baked Now the bursts of laughter quiet down, and even the
pass, at the heart of summer, at the heart of noon, storyteller
I come upon you, my Promised Land, Nods his head like a child on his mother’s back
And your beauty strikes me to the heart The dancers’ feet grow heavy, and heavy, too,
like the flash of an eagle. Come the alternating voices of singers.

Naked woman, dark woman Now the stars appear and the Night dreams
Leaning on that hill of clouds, dressed in its long,
Firm-fleshed ripe fruit, sombre raptures milky pagne.
of black wine, mouth making lyrical my mouth The roofs of the huts shine tenderly. What are they
Savannah stretching to clear horizons, saying
savannah shuddering beneath the East Wind's So secretly to the stars? Inside, the fire dies out
eager caresses In the closeness of sour and sweet smells.

Carved tom-tom, taut tom-tom, muttering Woman, light the clear-oil lamp. Let the Ancestors
under the Conqueror's fingers Speak around us as parents do when the children are in
bed.
Your solemn contralto voice is the Let us listen to the voices of the Elissa Elders. Exiled
spiritual song of the Beloved. like us
They did not want to die, or lose the flow of their
Naked woman, dark woman semen in the sands.
Let me hear, a gleam of friendly souls visits the
Oil that no breath ruffles, calm oil on the smoke-filled hut,
athlete's flanks, on the flanks of the Princes of Mali My head upon your breast as warm as tasty dang
Gazelle limbed in Paradise, pearls are stars on the streaming from the fire,
night of your skin Let me breathe the odor of our Dead, let me gather
And speak with their living voices, let me learn to live
Delights of the mind, the glinting of red Before plunging deeper than the diver
gold against your watered skin Into the great depths of sleep.

Under the shadow of your hair, my care The Flywhisk, John Ruganda
is lightened by the neighbouring suns of your eyes. Fling it sharply, and growl:
Rebels hide their heads
Naked woman, black woman, Wave it gently, and smile:
I sing your beauty that passes, the form Flies flit from pus drooping eyes
that I fix in the Eternal, Sling it on your arm, finally:
 Empty stomachs will drum for you Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
Song: to Celia [“Drink to me only with thine eyes”] I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
By Ben Jonson What wealth the show to me had brought:
Drink to me only with thine eyes,
And I will pledge with mine; For oft, when on my couch I lie
Or leave a kiss but in the cup, In vacant or in pensive mood,
And I’ll not look for wine. They flash upon that inward eye
The thirst that from the soul doth rise Which is the bliss of solitude;
Doth ask a drink divine; And then my heart with pleasure fills,
But might I of Jove’s nectar sup, And dances with the daffodils.
I would not change for thine.

I sent thee late a rosy wreath,

Not so much honouring thee
As giving it a hope, that there SONNET 130; William Shakespeare
It could not withered be.
But thou thereon didst only breathe, My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
And sent’st it back to me; Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
Since when it grows, and smells, I swear, If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
Not of itself, but thee. If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
As Much As You Can Constantine And in some perfumes is there more delight
P. Cavafy
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
And if you can’t shape your life the way you want,
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
at least try as much as you can
not to degrade it That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
by too much contact with the world, I grant I never saw a goddess go;
by too much activity and talk. My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
Try not to degrade it by dragging it along, As any she belied with false compare.
taking it around and exposing it so often
to the daily silliness
of social events and parties, The World Is Too Much With Us; William
until it comes to seem a boring hanger-on Wordsworth
The world is too much with us; late and soon,
I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—
by William Wordsworth Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
I wandered lonely as a cloud
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
A host, of golden daffodils;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
It moves us not. Great God! I’d rather be
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Continuous as the stars that shine
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
And twinkle on the milky way,
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
They stretched in never-ending line
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Amoretti LXXV; Edmund Spenser 1595
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
One day I wrote her name upon the strand,
But came the waves and washed it away:
The waves beside them danced; but they
Again I wrote it with a second hand, Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
But came the tide, and made my pains his prey. Retreating, to the breath
"Vain man," said she, "that dost in vain assay, Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
A mortal thing so to immortalize; And naked shingles of the world.
For I myself shall like to this decay,
And eke my name be wiped out likewise." Ah, love, let us be true
"Not so," (quod I) "let baser things devise To one another! for the world, which seems
To die in dust, but you shall live by fame: To lie before us like a land of dreams,
My verse your vertues rare shall eternize, So various, so beautiful, so new,
And in the heavens write your glorious name: Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Where whenas death shall all the world subdue, Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
Our love shall live, and later life renew." And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Ozymandias; Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1792 - 1822 Where ignorant armies clash by night.
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Fog; Carl Sandburg
Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand, The fog comes
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, on little cat feet.
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read It sits looking
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, over harbor and city
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed: on silent haunches
And on the pedestal these words appear: and then moves on.
‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!' Winter Poem; Nikki Giovanni
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay once a snowflake fell
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare on my brow and i loved
The lone and level sands stretch far away.” it so much and i kissed
it and it was happy and called its cousins
Dover Beach; Matthew Arnold and brothers and a web
The sea is calm tonight. of snow engulfed me then
The tide is full, the moon lies fair i reached to love them all
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light and i squeezed them and they became
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand, a spring rain and i stood perfectly
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay. still and was a flower
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray l(a e.e.cummings
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land, le
Listen! you hear the grating roar af
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling, fa
At their return, up the high strand, ll
Begin, and cease, and then again begin, s)
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring one
The eternal note of sadness in. l
iness
Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Ægean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow Easter Wings; George Herbert
Of human misery; we Lord, who createdst man in wealth and store,
Find also in the sound a thought, Though foolishly he lost the same,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea. Decaying more and more,
Till he became
The Sea of Faith Most poore:
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore With thee
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled. O let me rise
But now I only hear
 As larks, harmoniously, I wanted to write you a letter
And sing this day thy victories: my love,
Then shall the fall further the flight in me. that you would not read without sighing
that you would hide from from papa Bombo
My tender age in sorrow did beginne that you would withhold from mama Kieza
And still with sicknesses and shame. that you would reread without the coldness
Thou didst so punish sinne, of forgetting
That I became a letter to which in all Kilombo
Most thinne. no other would stand comparison …
With thee
Let me combine, I wanted to write you a letter
And feel thy victorie: my love
For, if I imp my wing on thine, a letter that would be brought to you by the passing
Affliction shall advance the flight in me. wind
a letter that the cashews and coffee trees
the hyenas and buffaloes
the alligators and grayling
could understand
Letter from a contract worker; Antonio Jacinto so that if the wind should lose it on the way
I wanted to write you a letter the beasts and plants
my love, with pity for our sharp suffering
a letter that would tell from song to song
of this desire lament to lament
to see you gabble to gabble
of this fear would bring you pure and hot
of losing you the burning words
of this more than benevolence that I feel the sorrowful words of the letter
of this indefinable ill that pursues me I wanted to write to you …
of this yearning to which I live in total surrender …
I wanted to write you a letter …
I wanted to write you a letter But oh my love, I cannot understand
my love, why it is, why, why, why it is, my dear
a letter of intimate secrets, that you cannot read
a letter of memories of you, and I – Oh the hopelessness! – cannot write!
of you
of your lips red as henna Harlem; Langston Hughes
of your hair black as mud What happens to a dream deferred?
of your eyes sweet as honey
of your breasts hard as wild orange Does it dry up
of your lynx gait like a raisin in the sun?
and of your caresses Or fester like a sore—
such that I can find no better here … And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
I wanted to write you a letter Or crust and sugar over—
my love, like a syrupy sweet?
that would recall the days in our haunts
our nights lost in the long grass Maybe it just sags
that would recall the shade falling on us from the plum like a heavy load.
trees
the moon filtering through the endless palm trees Or does it explode?
that would recall the madness Haiku; Basho Matsuo
of our passion An old silent pond...
and the bitterness A frog jumps into the pond,
of our separation … splash! Silence again.
Autumn moonlight— By Langston Hughes
a worm digs silently I’ve known rivers:
into the chestnut. I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than
the flow of human blood in human veins.
Lightning flash—
what I thought were faces My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
are plumes of pampas grass.
I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above
(Sonnet XLIII) it.
Edna St. Vincent Millay, 1892 - 1950 I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe
What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why, Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset.
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh I’ve known rivers:
Upon the glass and listen for reply, Ancient, dusky rivers.
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in winter stands the lonely tree, Love is Not All (Sonnet XXX)
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one, Edna St. Vincent Millay, 1892 - 1950
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before: Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink
I cannot say what loves have come and gone, Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain;
I only know that summer sang in me Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink
A little while, that in me sings no more. And rise and sink and rise and sink again;
Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath,
I Shall Return - Poem by Claude McKay Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;
I shall return again; I shall return Yet many a man is making friends with death
To laugh and love and watch with wonder-eyes Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.
At golden noon the forest fires burn, It well may be that in a difficult hour,
Wafting their blue-black smoke to sapphire skies. Pinned down by pain and moaning for release,
I shall return to loiter by the streams Or nagged by want past resolution’s power,
That bathe the brown blades of the bending grasses, I might be driven to sell your love for peace,
And realize once more my thousand dreams Or trade the memory of this night for food.
Of waters rushing down the mountain passes. It well may be. I do not think I would.
I shall return to hear the fiddle and fife
Of village dances, dear delicious tunes
That stir the hidden depths of native life, Rhythm of the Pestle
Stray melodies of dim remembered runes. Listen – listen
I shall return, I shall return again, Listen to the palpable rhythm
To ease my mind of long, long years of pain. of the periodic pestle,
plunging in proud perfection
Nothing Gold Can Stay into the cardinal cavity
Robert Frost, 1874 - 1963 of material mortar
Nature’s first green is gold, like the panting heart
Her hardest hue to hold. of the virgin bride
Her early leaf’s a flower; with the silver hymen,
But only so an hour. or the approaching stamp
Then leaf subsides to leaf. of late athleting cows
So Eden sank to grief, hurrying home to their bleating calves.
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay. At each succeeding stroke
The grain darts, glad to be scattered
The Negro Speaks of Rivers by the hard glint.
of the pestle’s passion.
By Richard Ntiru.

Rainforest
The forest drips and glows with green.
The tree-frog croaks his far-off song.
His voice is stillness, moss and rain
drunk from the forest ages long.

We cannot understand that call

unless we move into his dream,
where all is one and one is all
And frog and python are the same.

We with our quick dividing eyes

measure, distinguish and are gone
The forest burns, the tree frog dies,
yet one is all and all are one
Judith Wright

America by Claude MacKay

Although she feeds me bread of bitterness,
And sinks into my throat her tiger's tooth,
Stealing my breath of life, I will confess
I love this cultured hell that tests my youth!
Her vigor flows like tides into my blood,
Giving me strength erect against her hate.
Her bigness sweeps my being like a flood.
Yet as a rebel fronts a king in state,
I stand within her walls with not a shred
Of terror, malice, not a word of jeer.
Darkly I gaze into the days ahead,
And see her might and granite wonders there,
Beneath the touch of Time's unerring hand,
Like priceless treasures sinking in the sand.