Category: Not My Poetry

Ballad in A

A Kansan plays cards, calls Marshal
a crawdad, that barb lands that rascal a slap;
that Kansan jackass scats,
camps back at caballada ranch.

Hangs kack, ax, and camp hat.
Kansan’s nag mad and rants can’t bask,
can’t bacchanal and garland a lass,
can’t at last brag can crack Law’s balls,

Kansan’s cantata rang at that ramada ranch,
Mañana, Kansan snarls, I’ll have an armada
and thwart Law’s brawn,
slam Law a damn mass war path.

Marshal’s a marksman, maps Kansan’s track,
calm as a shaman, sharp as a hawk,
Says: That dastard Kansan’s had
and gnaws lamb fatback.

At dawn, Marshal stalks that ranch,
packs a gat and blasts Kansan’s ass
and Kansan gasps, blasts back.
A flag flaps at half-mast.

– Cathy Park Hong (American poet, b. 1976)

Brought to you by the letter "A".

[daily log: walking, 9km]

Snaw

Snaw,
Dingin' on slaw,
Quait, quait, far nae win's blaw,
Haps up bonnily the frost-grippit lan'.
Quait, quait, the bare trees stan',
Raisin' caul' fingers tae the deid, leiden lift,
Keppin' a' they can as the flakes doon drift.
Still, still,
The glen an' the hill,
Nae mair they echo the burnie's bit v'ice,
That's tint, death-silent, awa' neth the ice.
Soun'less, the warl' is row'd up in sleep,
Dreamless an' deep,
Dreamless an' deep.
Niver a move but the saft doon-glidin'
O' wee, wee fairies on fite steeds ridin',
Ridin', ridin', the haill earth hidin',
Till a'thing's awa'
An there's naething but snaw,
Snaw.

John M. Caie (Scottish Poet, 1878-1949)

I think that the Scots language is one of the most beautiful.

[daily log: walking, 7km]

Mint

It looked like a clump of small dusty nettles
Growing wild at the gable of the house
Beyond where we dropped our refuse and old bottles
Unverdant ever, almost beneath notice.

But, to be fair, it also spelled promise
And newness in the back yard of our life
As if something callow yet tenacious
Sauntered in green alleys and grew rife.

The snip of scissor blades, the light of Sunday
Mornings when the mint was cut and loved:
My last things will be first things slipping from me.
Yet let all things go free that have survived.

Let the smells of mint go heady and defenceless
Like inmates liberated in that yard.
Like the disregarded ones we turned against
Because we’d failed them by our disregard.

– Seamus Heaney (Irish poet, 1939-2013)

[daily log: walking, 6.5km]

Paisaje de arrabal

Anochecer de domingo

¿Quién aprisionó el paisaje
entre rieles de cemento?

Bocas hediondas ametrallan la noche
Los hombres que tornan del domingo
con mujeres marchitas colgadas de los brazos
y un paisaje giróvago
en la cabeza
vendrán soñando en un salto prodigioso
para que el río acune su sueño

Un grito mecánico entra en el puente
De pronto alguien
ha volcado sobre nosotros su mirada desde
la curva de la carretera
Pasó
Sus ojos van levantando
los paisajes que duermen
Ahora la luna ha caído a mis pies

– Lucía Sánchez Saornil (poeta española, 1895-1970)

[daily log: walking, 6.5km]

Bat's Ultrasound

Sleeping-bagged in a duplex wing
with fleas, in rock-cleft or building
radar bats are darkness in miniature,
their whole face one tufty crinkled ear
with weak eyes, fine teeth bared to sing.

Few are vampires. None flit through the mirror.
Where they flutter at evening's a queer
tonal hunting zone above highest C.
Insect prey at the peak of our hearing
drone re to their detailing tee:

ah, eyrie-ire; aero hour, eh?
O'er our ur-area (our era aye
ere your raw row) we air our array
err, yaw, row wry—aura our orrery,
our eerie ü our ray, our arrow.

A rare ear, our aery Yahweh.

– Les Murray (Australian poet, b 1938)

[daily log: walking, 6.5km]

Awaiting

He was, and educated, and became,
residing and remaining and intending,
then on became in, and again,
and later and later again.
He still is, and hopes, and intends,
and may
but is certain to –
one day.
– Alasdair Gray (Scottish poet and novelist, b. 1934)

[daily log: walking, 6.5km]

POEMA 8

Abeja blanca zumbas ebria de miel en mi alma
y te tuerces en lentas espirales de humo.

Soy el desesperado, la palabra sin ecos,
el que lo perdió todo, y el que todo lo tuvo.

Última amarra, cruje en ti mi ansiedad última.
En mi tierra desierta eres la última rosa.

Ah silenciosa!

Cierra tus ojos profundos. Allí aletea la noche.
Ah desnuda tu cuerpo de estatua temerosa.

Tienes ojos profundos donde la noche alea.
Frescos brazos de flor y regazo de rosa.

Se parecen tus senos a los caracoles blancos.
Ha venido a dormirse en tu vientre una mariposa de sombra.

Ah silenciosa!

He aquí la soledad de donde estás ausente.
Llueve. El viento del mar caza errantes gaviotas.

El agua anda descalza por las calles mojadas.
De aquel árbol se quejan, como enfermos, las hojas.

Abeja blanca, ausente, aún zumbas en mi alma.
Revives en el tiempo, delgada y silenciosa.

Ah silenciosa!

– Pablo Neruda (poeta chilena, 1904-1973)

[daily log: walking, 7km]

Fire On The Hills

The deer were bounding like blown leaves
Under the smoke in front the roaring wave of the brush-fire;
I thought of the smaller lives that were caught.
Beauty is not always lovely; the fire was beautiful, the terror
Of the deer was beautiful; and when I returned
Down the back slopes after the fire had gone by, an eagle
Was perched on the jag of a burnt pine,
Insolent and gorged, cloaked in the folded storms of his shoulders
He had come from far off for the good hunting
With fire for his beater to drive the game; the sky was merciless
Blue, and the hills merciless black,
The sombre-feathered great bird sleepily merciless between them.
I thought, painfully, but the whole mind,
The destruction that brings an eagle from heaven is better than mercy.

– Robinson Jeffers (American poet, 1887-1962)

[daily log: walking some unknown distance]

Vaya con Dios

You seem like
a nice enough deity,
but I’m not supposed
to talk to you anymore.

– Elaine Equi (American poet, b. 1953)

[daily log: walking, 1km]

LA CANCIÓN DEL PRESENTE

No sé odiar, ni amar tampoco.
Y en mi vida inconsecuente,
amo, a veces, como un loco
u odio de un modo insolente.
Pero siempre dura poco
Lo que quiero y lo que no…
¡Qué sé yo!
Ni me importa…
Alegre es la vida y corta,
Pasajera.
Y es absurdo,
y es antipático y zurdo
complicarla
con un ansia de verdad
duradera
y expectante.
¿Luego?… ¡Ya!
La verdad será cualquiera.
Lo precioso es el instante
que se va.

– Manuel Machado (poeta español, 1874-1947)

[daily log: walking, 1km]

The Lake Isle Of Innisfree

I WILL arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.
– William Butler Yeats (Irish poet, 1865-1939)

[daily log: walking, 6.5km]

Una piedra en el agua de la cordura

Una piedra en el agua de la cordura
abisma las coordenadas que nos sostienen
entre perfectos círculos

Al fondo,

Pende en la sombra el hilo de la cordura
entre este punto
y aquél
entre este punto
y aquél

y si uno
se columpia
sobre sus rombos,
verá el espacio multiplicarse
bajo los breves arcos de la cordura, verá sus gestos
recortados e iguales
si luego baja
y se sienta
y se ve meciéndose.

– Coral Bracho (poeta mexicana, n. 1951)

[daily log: walking, 6.5km]

The House-top

A Night Piece
(July, 1863)

No sleep. The sultriness pervades the air
And binds the brain—a dense oppression, such
As tawny tigers feel in matted shades,
Vexing their blood and making apt for ravage.
Beneath the stars the roofy desert spreads
Vacant as Libya. All is hushed near by.
Yet fitfully from far breaks a mixed surf
Of muffled sound, the atheist roar of riot.
Yonder, where parching Sirius set in drought
Balefully glares red Arson—there—and there.
The town is taken by its rats—ship-rats
And rats of the wharves. All civil charms
And priestly spells which late held hearts in awe—
Fear-bound, subjected to a better sway
Than sway of self; these like a dream dissolve,
And man rebounds whole aeons back in nature.
Hail to the low dull rumble, dull and dead,
And ponderous drag that shakes the wall.
Wise Draco comes, deep in the midnight roll
Of black artillery; he comes, though late;
In code corroborating Calvin’s creed
And cynic tyrannies of honest kings;
He comes, nor parlies; and the Town, redeemed,
Gives thanks devout; nor, being thankful, heeds
The grimy slur on the Republic’s faith implied,
Which holds that Man is naturally good,
And—more—is Nature’s Roman, never to be scourged.

– Herman Melville (American novelist and poet, 1819-1891)

Melville is better known for his novels, most notably, Moby-Dick. But I have always rather liked his poetry, too.

[daily log: walking, 6.5km]

A Poem of Unrest

Men duly understand the river of life,
misconstruing it, as it widens and cities grow
dark and denser, always farther away.

And of course that remote denseness suits
us, as lambs and clover might have
if things had been built to order differently.

But since I don't understand myself, only segments
of myself that misunderstand each other, there's no
reason for you to want to, no way you could

even if we both wanted it. Do those towers even exist?
We must look at it that way, along those lines
so the thought can erect itself, like plywood battlements.

– John Ashbery (American poet, b1927)

[daily log: walking, 6.5km]