Gone

About the little chambers of my heart
Friends have been coming - going - many a year.
The doors stand open there.
Some, lightly stepping, enter; some depart.

Freely they come and freely go, at will.
The walls give back their laughter; all day long
They fill the house with song.
One door alone is shut, one chamber still.


by Mary Elizabeth Coleridge

To Memory

I spent last weekend rummaging through old books and things in my great-great-grandmother's house, and I came across a wonderful collection of poetry. The book didn't even have the author's name written in it! Only a note explaining that "These poems owe much to one whose name I honour too highly to set it here." Amazing. A google search revealed the author to be Mary Elizabeth Coleridge. The poems are exquisite. This is the first:

To Memory

Strange Power, I know not what thou art
Murderer or mistress of my heart.
I know I'd rather meet the blow
Of my most unrelenting foe
Than live - as I now live - to be
Slain twenty times a day by thee.

Yet, when I would command thee hence,
Thou mockest at the vain pretence,
Murmuring in mine ear a song
Once loved, alas! forgotten long;
And on my brow I feel a kiss
That I would rather die than miss.


by Mary Elizabeth Coleridge

An Unexpected Meeting

We treat each other with exceeding courtesy,
we say, it`s great to see you after all these years.

Our tigers drink milk.
Our hawks tread the ground.
Our sharks have all drowned.
Our wolves yawn beyond the open cage.

Our snakes have shed their lighting,
our apes their flights of fancy,
our peacocks have renounced their plumes.
The bats flew our of our hair long ago.

We fall silent in midsentence,
all smiles, past help.
Our humans
don`t know how to talk to one another.

Wislawa Szymborska

No Deal

And when I died, the devil came and said,
"Now here's the deal: I'll give you your old life
all over once again, no strings attached.
Like an actor in a play, of course, you'll have
to follow the same script that you rehearsed
the first time through—you cannot change a glance,
a word, a gesture; but think of taking your first
steps again, and having your first romance

repeat itself, your love back from the dead,
beautiful and new and seventeen.
What matter if you see the future coming—
The cloven hoof of sorrow, loss's horn—
her dreamy eye, her nodding head?"
Get thee behind me, Satan, I should have said.


by Ronald Wallace

Venetian Air

Row gently here, my gondolier; so softly wake the tide,
That not an ear on earth may hear, but hers to whom we glide.
If Heaven had but tongues to speak, and starry eyes to see,
Oh! think what tales 'twould have to tell of wandering youths like me!
Now rest thee here, my gondolier; hush, hush, for up I go,
To climb yon light balcòny's height, while thou keep'st watch below.
Ah! did we take for Heaven above but half such pains as we
Take day and night for woman's love, what angels we should be!


by Thomas Moore

Radar

No one exactly knows

Exactly how clouds look in the sky

Or the shape of the mountains below them

Or the direction in which fish swim.

No one exactly knows.

The eye is jealous of whatever moves

And the heart

Is too far buried in the sand

To tell.

They are going on a journey

Those deep blue creatures

Passing us as if they were sunshine

Look

Those fins, those closed eyes

Admiring each last drop of the ocean.

I crawled into bed with sorrow that night

Couldn’t touch his fingers. See the splash

Of the water

The noisy movement of cloud

The push of the humpbacked mountains

Deep at the sand’s edge.

by Jack Spicer

Morning

I've got to tell you
how I love you always
I think of it on grey
mornings with death

in my mouth the tea
is never hot enough
then and the cigarette
dry the maroon robe

chills me I need you
and look out the window
at the noiseless snow

At night on the dock
the buses glow like
clouds and I am lonely
thinking of flutes

I miss you always
when I go to the beach
the sand is wet with
tears that seem mine

although I never weep
and hold you in my
heart with a very real
humor you'd be proud of

the parking lot is
crowded and I stand
rattling my keys the car
is empty as a bicycle

what are you doing now
where did you eat your
lunch and were there
lots of anchovies it

is difficult to think
of you without me in
the sentence you depress
me when you are alone

Last night the stars
were numerous and today
snow is their calling
card I'll not be cordial

there is nothing that
distracts me music is
only a crossword puzzle
do you know how it is

when you are the only
passenger if there is a
place further from me
I beg you do not go


by Frank O'Hara