Golublog: An Anthropology Blog » Poetry

Save vs. Squirrels

Alex — Tue, 20 Jul 2004 18:36:37 +0000

(sometimes IRC makes you speak in poetry)

squirrels are vermin they have the plague
don’t let them fool you with
their beady eyes
you will see
the truth
if you
make
your
savings throw
if not
then you
will try to
negotiate with them
and be charmed for sure

The Hourglass

Alex — Fri, 25 Jun 2004 04:55:36 +0000

DO but consider this small dust
Here running in the glass,
By atoms moved;
Could you believe that this
The body was
Of one that loved?
And in his mistress’ flame, playing like a fly,
Turned to cinders by her eye?
Yes; and in death, as life, unblessed,
To have’t expressed,
Even ashes of lovers find no rest.

-Ben Jonson

Let’s Take a Walk

Alex — Thu, 13 Nov 2003 04:49:00 +0000

Let’s take a walk
In the city
Till our shoes get wet
(It’s been raining
All night) and when
We see the traffic
Lights and the moon
Let’s take a smile
Off the ashcan, let’s walk
into town (I mean
A lemon peel)

Let’s make music
(I hear the cats
Purply beautiful
Like hallways in summer
Made of snowing rubber
Valence piccalili and diamonds)
Oh see the arch ruby
Of the late March sky
Are you less intelligent
Than the pirate of lemons
Let’s take a walk

I know you tonight
As I have never known
A book of white stones
Or a bookcase of orange groans
or symbolism
I think I’m in love
With those imaginary racetracks
Of red traced grey in
The sky and the gimcracks
Of all you know and love
Who once loathed firecrackers
And license plates and
Diamonds but now you love them all
And just for my sake

Let’s take a walk
into the river
(I can even do that
Tonight) where
If I kiss you please
Remember with your shoes off
You’re so beautiful like
A lifted umbrella orange
And white we may never
Discover the blue over -
Coat maybe never never O blind
With this (love) let’s walk
Into the first
Rivers of morning as you are seen
To be bathed in a light while light
Come on

Words by Kenneth Koch
Music by Ned Rorem

i will wade out

Alex — Tue, 28 Oct 2003 22:20:21 +0000

i will wade out
      till my thighs are steeped in burning flowers
I will take the sun into my mouth
and leap into the ripe air
          Alive
              with closed eyes
to dash against the darkness
          in the sleeping curves of my body
Shall enter fingers of smooth mastery
with chasteness of sea-girls
          Will I complete the mystery
          of my flesh
I will rise
      After a thousand years
lipping
flowers
    And set my teeth in the silver of the moon

-e.e. cummings

(you should hear this one set to music)

Silent Noon

Alex — Mon, 20 Oct 2003 05:49:00 +0000

Your hands lie open in the long fresh grass,
The finger points look through like rosy blooms:
Your eye smile peace. The pasture gleams and glooms
‘Neath billowing skies that scatter and amass,

All around our nest, far as the eye can pass,
Are golden kincupfields with silver edge,
Where the cow-parsley skirts the hawthorne hedge.
‘Tis visible silence, still as the hour-glass.

Deep in the sun-search’d growths the dragonfly
Hangs like a blue thread loosen’d from the sky:
So this wing’d hour is dropt to us from above.

Oh! Clasp we to our hearts, for deathless dower,
This close-companion’d inarticulate hour,
When twofold silence was the song of love.

- Dante Gabriel Rossetti

I’m thinking of the Vaughn Williams setting of this, of course.

On Putting Things in Order

Alex — Mon, 20 Oct 2003 03:32:41 +0000

File this, throw out that.
Alert the Secretariat
in re each claim and caveat
To better serve the Cause of Alphabet.
Throw out this, file that

File this, throw that out,
We know beyond all doubt
how Perfect Order reconciles –

And now throw out the files.

-Kenneth Burke