Funeral Blues by W.H. Auden

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone.
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum,
Bring out the coffin...let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle, moaning overhead,
Scribbling on the sky the message: He is Dead.
Put crepe bows 'round the necks of public doves,
Let traffic policemen wear black, cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East, my West.
My working week and my Sunday rest.
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song,
I thought love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now, put out every one.
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun.
Pour out the ocean and sweep up the wood,
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

Variations on an Old Standard by A.E. Stallings

Come let us kiss. This cannot last-
Too late is on its way soon-
And we are going nowhere fast.

Already it is after noon,
That momentary palindrome.
The mid-day hours start to swwon-

Around the corner lurks the gloam.
The sun flies at half-mast, and flags.
The color guard of bees heads home,

Whizzing by in zigs and zags,
Weighed down by the dusty gold
They've hoarded in their saddlebags,

All the summer they can hold.
It is too late to be too shy:
The Present tenses, starts to scold-

Tomorrow has no alibi,
And hides its far side like the moon.
The bats inebriate the sky,

And now mosquitoes start to tune
Their tiny violins. I see
Rising like a grey balloon,

The head that does not look at me,
And in its face, the shadow cast,
The Sea they call Tranquility --

Dry and desolate and vast,
Where all passions flow at last.
Come let us kiss. It's after noon,
And we are going nowhere fast.

The Maid on the Shore by Stan Rogers

There is a young maiden, she lives all a-lone
She lived all a-lone on the shore-o
There's nothing she can find to comfort her mind
But to roam all a-lone on the shore, shore, shore
But to roam all a-lone on the shore'

Twas of the young Captain who sailed the salt sea
Let the wind blow high, blow low
I will die, I will die, the young Captain did cry
If I don't have that maid on the shore, shore, shore ...

I have lots of silver, I have lots of gold
I have lots of costly ware-oI'll divide,
I'll divide, with my jolly ship's cres
If they row me that maid on the shore, shore, shore ...

After much persuasion, they got her aboard
Let the wind blow high, blow low
They replaced her away in his cabin below
Here's adieu to all sorrow and care, care, care ...

They replaced her away in his cabin below
Let the wind blow high, blow low
She's so pretty and neat, she's so sweet and complete
She's sung Captain and sailors to sleep, sleep, sleep ...

Then she robbed him of silver, she robbed him of gold
She robbed him of costly ware-o
Then took his broadsword instead of an oar
And paddled her way to the shore, shore, shore ..

Me men must be crazy, me men must be mad
Me men must be deep in despair-o
For to let you away from my cabin so gay
And to paddle your way to the shore, shore, shore ...

Your men was not crazy, your men was not mad
Your men was not deep in despair-o
I deluded your sailors as well as yourself
I'm a maiden again on the shore, shore, shore ...

When You are Old by W. B. Yeats

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

Who Goes with Fergus? by WIlliam Butler Yeats

Who will go drive with Fergus now,
And pierce the deep wood’s woven shade,
And dance upon the level shore?
Young man, lift up your russet brow,
And lift your tender eyelids, maid,
And brood on hopes and fear no more.
And no more turn aside and brood
Upon love’s bitter mystery;
For Fergus rules the brazen cars,
And rules the shadows of the wood,
And the white breast of the dim sea
And all dishevelled wandering stars.

Annabel Lee by Edgar Allen Poe

It was many and many a year ago,I
n a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of ANNABEL LEE;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with a love that was more than love-
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsman came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me-
Yes!- that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)T
hat the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we-
Of many far wiser than we-
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling- my darling- my life and my bride,
In the sepulchre there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea.

We Are Waiting for Peace to Break Out by Carlos Reyes

WE ARE WAITING FOR PEACE TO BREAK OUT
--for Marvin Simmons
We are waiting for peace to break out
We are waiting for flowers to bloom
We are waiting for the moon to come
from behind the black clouds of war
We are waiting for the light
We are awaiting
and as we wait we sing songs of celebration
We are waiting
and as we wait we hold out our hands in love and friendship:
white hands extended in friendship to black hands
and brown and green hands of the earth
We are waiting
and while we wait we applaud those who have gone before us
preaching peace: all the Martin Luther Kings, all the Gandhis
We are waiting for peace to break out
and as we wait we dance: we dance with the cold east wind
with the creaking singing branches of giant firs
we dance with the devils
of dust and the angels of clouds
We are waiting
and as we wait we are learning the language
of burning roses and the sunflowers slowly turning toward the sun
We are waiting for peace to break out
and while we wait we are learning to listen
to cries for mercy and cries for help
though we may not know the language
We are learning to listen for the arrival of doves
We are waiting for peace to break out
and while we wait we are smiling at you
at all of you--at the you and me in the mirror...
We are waiting for peace to break out
We are waiting for buds to pop though it is deep winter
We wait for peace as patiently as the drop of water
on the lips at the mouth of the fountain
We wait knowing the water of peace is cool and sweet
sure that the crystal drop will fall on the earth
in spite of any of man’s evil actions--

Hole in the Wall by Andrea Seek

The Hole in the Wall


Hole in the wall:
Where my brother sits.
An uncle tried to kill my aunt in the course of the divorce,
So the family shuns him still.
But he visits my brother in jail,
And everyone agrees that’s a damn fine thing to do.

Hole in the wall,
Where my brother waits.
My Grandfather lost a cowboy friend, Herb Mink,
An ordinary death,
But an old, now rare, boyhood friend,
Who roped coyotes in the sagebrush ocean a hundred years ago,
Rented me a rain hat while we hunted deer between the Bonnie and the Brace,
Stuttered monumentally,
Kindest man you’d ever meet.

Where my Grandfather comes from, you might see a guy was hurt,
But you’d never ask how. He won’t say and
You just don’t.

But a guy in jail hurts all the time,
Waits there at the hole in the wall,
Doesn’t have anyplace he has to get to right now,
Or at least, no place that he can get, anyway.
So my Grandfather reminisces to him,
On those little phones, thru those scratched-up plastic windows,
At the hole in the wall,
Because sure, he could use a visitor,
And everyone agrees that’s a damn fine thing to do.

A Prayer for Old Age by William Butler Yeats

God guard me from those thoughts men think
In the mind alone;
He that sings a lasting song
Thinks in a marrow-bone;

From all that makes a wise old man
That can be praised of all;
O what am I that I should not seem
For the song's sake a fool?

I pray -- for word is out
And prayer comes round again --
That I may seem, though I die old,
A foolish, passionate man.

You Can Call Me Al by Paul Simon

A man walks down the street,
He says, Why am I soft in the middle now?
Why am I soft in the middle?
The rest of my life is so hard!
I need a photo-opportunity,
I want a shot at redemption!
Don't want to end up a cartoon,
In a cartoon graveyard .....
Bonedigger, Bonedigger,Dogs in the moonlight.
Far away, my well-lit door.
Mr. Beerbelly, Beerbelly,
Get these mutts away from me!
You know, I don't find this stuff amusing anymore ....
A man walks down the street,
He says, Why am I short of attention?
Got a short little span of attention,
And whoa, my nights are so long!
Where's my wife and family?
What if I die here?
Who'll be my role-model?
Now that my role-model is ....Gone ...... gone,
He ducked back down the alley,
With some roly-poly, little bat-faced girl.
All along .... along ....There were incidents and accidents,
There were hints and allegations .....
A man walks down the street,
It's a street in a strange world.
Maybe it's the Third World.
Maybe it's his first time around.
He doesn't speak the language,
He holds no currency.
He is a foreign man,
He is surrounded by the sound, sound ....
Cattle in the marketplace.
Scatterlings and orphanages.
He looks around, around .....
He sees angels in the architecture,
Spinning in infinity,
He says, Amen! and Hallelujah!

In My Craft or Sullen Art by Dylan Thomas

In my craft or sullen art
Exercised in the still night
When only the moon rages
And the lovers lie abed
With all their griefs in their arms,
I labor by singing light
Not for ambition or bread
Or the strut and trade of charms
On the ivory stages
But for the common wages
Of their most secret heart.
Not for the proud man apart
From the raging moon I write
On these spindrift pages
Nor for the towering dead
With their nightingales and psalms
But for the lovers, their arms
Round the griefs of the ages,
Who pay no praise or wages
Nor heed my craft or art.

No Difference by Shel Silverstein

Small as a peanut
Big as a giant,
We're all the same size
When we turn off the light.

Red black or orange,
Yellow or white
We all look the same
When we turn off the light.

So maybe the way
To make everything right
Is for God to just reach out
And turn off the light!

After Making Love We Hear Footsteps by Galway Kinnell

For I can snore like a bullhorn
or play loud music
or sit up talking with a reasonably sober Irishman
and Fergus will only sink deeper
into his dreamless sleep, which goes by all in one flash,
but let there be that heavy breathing
or a stifled come-cry anywhere in the house
and he will wrench himself awake
and make for it on the run – as now, we lie together,
after making love, quiet, touching along the lengths of our bodies,
familiar touch of the long-married,
and he appears – in his baseball pajamas, it happens,
the neck opening so small he has to screw them on –
and flops down between us and hugs us and snuggles himself to
sleep,
his face gleaming with satisfaction at being this very child.

In the half darkness we look at each other
and smile
and touch arms across this little, startlingly muscled body –
this one whom habit of memory propels to the ground of his making,
sleeper only the mortal sounds can sing awake,
this blessing love gives again into our arms.

Birches by Robert Frost

Robert Frost (1874-1963)
Birches
1When I see birches bend to left and right
2Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
3I like to think some boy's been swinging them.
4But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay.
5Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen them
6Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
7After a rain. They click upon themselves
8As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored
9As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
10Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells
11Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust--
12Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
13You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.
14They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,
15And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed
16So low for long, they never right themselves:
17You may see their trunks arching in the woods
18Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground
19Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair
20Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.
21But I was going to say when Truth broke in
22With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm
23(Now am I free to be poetical?)
24I should prefer to have some boy bend them
25As he went out and in to fetch the cows--
26Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,
27Whose only play was what he found himself,
28Summer or winter, and could play alone.
29One by one he subdued his father's trees
30By riding them down over and over again
31Until he took the stiffness out of them,
32And not one but hung limp, not one was left
33For him to conquer. He learned all there was
34To learn about not launching out too soon
35And so not carrying the tree away
36Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise
37To the top branches, climbing carefully
38With the same pains you use to fill a cup
39Up to the brim, and even above the brim.
40Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,
41Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.
42So was I once myself a swinger of birches.
43And so I dream of going back to be.
44It's when I'm weary of considerations,
45And life is too much like a pathless wood
46Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
47Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
48From a twig's having lashed across it open.
49I'd like to get away from earth awhile
50And then come back to it and begin over.
51May no fate willfully misunderstand me
52And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
53Not to return. Earth's the right place for love:
54I don't know where it's likely to go better.
55I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree,
56And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
57Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
58But dipped its top and set me down again.
59That would be good both going and coming back.
60One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.
Notes
5] Ice-storms do that. "As ice-storms do." in Robert Frost, Collected Poems, Prose, & Plays (Library of America, 1995), p. 117 (a later, revised text).
14] bracken: a fern with large leaves and creeping roots, often found in clusters.
23] Line omitted in Library of America edition.
56] a snow-white trunk: birches have a white bark.

Spirits Lurking Beneath Purple Heather by Chris Shaw

Spirits lurking beneath purple heather
Calling me home to the fog and the dew

Grand Emerald Isle Green Pastures A’Plenty
Hills, fields and valleys to rest and renew

Mystical lilting voices of banshees, ancient king’s queens and fairies
And leprechauns too

The dirges the poems the beauty the silence
The song of the spirits in the fog and the dew


My people my wisdom my tribe and my laughter
My joy on the journey evolved from its brew

Betwixt and between beside and below me
The prayer of Patrick hails the divine through and through

My body and soul however fraught and overburdened
My heart frozen stone -- melts in the fog and the dew

Soothed by its drums, by its harps, strings and whistles,
By its pipes and its voices reaching heaven anew

Its reels jigs and feis’s its poets its scribes
Its music all embracing breaking evil spell too


Grand Emerald Isle the home of my people
I dream of my forefathers aplenty its true

Ancient mother tongue I hear in the whispering heather,
Forever calling me home to the fog and the dew.

St. Kevin and the Blackbird by Seamus Heaney

And then there was St. Kevin and the blackbird.
The saint is kneeling, arms stretched out, inside
His cell, but the cell is narrow, so

One turned-up palm is out the window, stiff
As a crossbeam, when a blackbird lands
And lays in it and settles down to nest.

Kevin feels the warm eggs, the small breast, the tucked
Neat head and claws and, finding himself linked
Into the network of eternal life,

Is moved to pity; Now he must hold his hand
Like branch out in the sun and rain for weeks
Until the young are hatched and fledged and flown.

*

And since the whole thing's imagined anyhow,
Imagine being Kevin. Which is he?
self-forgetful or in agony all the time

From the neck on out down through his hurting forearms?
Are his fingers sleeping? Does he still feel his knees?
Or has the shut-eyed blank of underearth

Crept up through him? Is there distance in his head?
Alone and mirrored clear in love's deep river,
'To labor and not to seek reward,' he prays,

A prayer his body makes entirely
For he has forgotten self, forgotten bird,
And on the riverbank forgotten the river's name.

The Song of Wandering Angus by W.B. Yeats

I went out to the hazel wood
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire aflame,
But something rustled on the floor
And someone called me by my name.
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom i her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone.
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done
the silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.

Bread by Brendan Kennelly

Someone else cut off my head
In a golden field.
Now I am re-created
By her fingers. This
Moulding is more delicate
Than a first kiss,
More deliberate than her own
Rising up
And lying down.
Even at my weakest, I am
Finer than anything
In this legendary garden.
Yet I am nothing till
She runs her fingers through me
And shapes me with her skill.

St. Francis and the Sow by Galway Kinnell

The bud
stands for all things,
even for those things that don't flower,
for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;
though sometimes it is necessary
to reteach a thing its loveliness
to put a hand on its brow
of the flower
and retell it in words and in touch
it is lovely
until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing;
as Saint Francis
put his hand on the creased foreheada
of the sow, and told her in words and in touch
blessings of earth on the sow, and the sow
began remembering all down her thick length,
from the earthen snout all the way
through the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of the tail,
from the hard spininess spiked out from the spine
down through the great broken heart
to the sheer blue milken dreaminess spurting and shuddering
from the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths sucking and blowing beneath
them;
the long, perfect loveliness of sow.

Writing Retreat, Maria's Apartment, To the Tune of a Barking Dog by Karen D'Amato

Let me make a ritual
of opening the door
with a key
claimed in advance,
to the table
set with Mrs. Dash
and my spunky girlfriend's
sugar bowl, so tiger-striped
I almost bare my teeth
Add the white lamp
sprung from the livingroom,
a blue-lined
pad, the wind's
blank call,
a simple pen,
and Heaney's
light to dig with
as my ink scratches
the page-
and translates this dog's
persistence
through the blackened
third-floor panes:
You can do this
because you asked.
You are here because
you asked. Keep asking.

4 a.m. Cots

Not for the love of whiskey do they drink
but for the hunger of their empty insides
They are the wounded souls, daily doing battle
their own swords turned inward
and, as the pale darkness creeps away from
the spreading redness of the sucking sun
(a sight locked on sore eyes)
they too lift, and once again
become distinguishable from the ground.
No horns destroy the singular rendezvous with God.
No heroes distract from the silent revelry,
which, wave by wave,
washes it all down
washes it all down

High & Dry by Harry O'Connor

I was on my way to a one day stay in Huntsville, Alabama,
Flying high o'er the Southern sky, unwary of the drama
That was to fall upon us all, I sipped my nip of cheer,
Not knowing that, in one hour flat, I'd be sipping three-two beer.

The sun was bright, a perfect flight a thirty thousand feet
And there below, like banks of snow, were clouds far 'neath my seat.
And quick we went in steep descent! The clouds drew rapid near!
And least inclined to come to mind was a glass of three-two beer.

My ears did pop; my heart did stop; the masks fell there before us.
"Take oxygen and breathe it in!" the steward did implore us.
The captain said, "The pressure's dead, but there's no need to fear
For I'll set you down in Knoxville town and buy you three-two beer."

And true to his word, this giant bird in Knoxville airport landed.
And out we filed to breezes mild, in Knoxville airport stranded.
They said, "It will be sometime still before we're out of here,
So go and eat, we'll stand the treat and have some three-two beer."

Now the oddest turn of the whole concern was that they weren't kidding.
Up stepped the wench, my thirst to quench, and waited for my bidding.
Up spoke I, "Martini, dry"; she laughed and said, "My dear,
Whate'er you pay, I'm sorry to say, we've only three-two beer."

So here I sit in a mounting fit, my thirst still unrequited.
Plucked from the sky to a county dry, my thanks for flying United.
And way up there in Bedford fair I'm sure you'll think its queer
That Knoxville men would pass up gin for a glass of three-two beer!

The Stolen Child by W. B. Yeats

The Stolen Child

WHERE dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leaky island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water rats;
There we've hid our faery vats,
Fully of berrys
And of reddest stolen cherries
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wave of moonlight glosses
The dim gray sands with light,
Far off by furthest Rosses
We foot it all the night,
Weaving olden dances
Mingling hands and mingling glances
Till the moon has taken flight;
To and fro we leap
And chase the frothy bubbles,
While the world is full of troubles
And anxious in its sleep.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wandering water gushes
From the hills above Glen-Car,
In pools among the rushes
That scare could bathe a star,
We seek for slumbering trout
And whispering in their ears
Give them unquiet dreams;
Leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
Over the young streams.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Away with us he's going,
The solemn-eyed:
He'll hear no more the lowing
Of the calves on the warm hillside
Or the kettle on the hob
Sing peace into his breast,
Or see the brown mice bob
Round and round the oatmeal chest
For he comes, the human child.
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than he can understand.

Names by Carl Sandburg

Names
Carl Sandburg

There is only one horse of the earth
and his name is All Horses.

There is only one bird in the air
and his name is All Wings.

There is only one fish in the sea
and his name is All Fins.

There is only one man in the world
and his name is All Men.

There is only one woman in the world
and her name is All Women.

There is only one child in the world
and the child's name is All Children.

There is only one Maker in the world
and His children cover the earth
and they are named All God's Children.

A St. Patrick's Day Poem by Katie O

A St. Patrick's Day Poem

Green is a color that shamrocks should be
at the end of a rainbow, a pot of gold you shall see.
You can get that pot of gold if you see a Leprechaun
that says, "You can't catch me! Nana, nana boo boo ...
and if you do, you will get a pot of gold...
and good luck, too!"

An Irish Airman Forsees His Death by W. B. Yeats

An Irish Airman Foresees His Death

I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate,
Those that I guard I do not love;
My country is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan's poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.
Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.

William Butler Yeats

The Fiddler of Dooney by W. B. Yeats

The Fiddler of Dooney by William Butler Yeats
When I play on my fiddle in Dooney,
Folk dance like a wave of the sea;
My cousin is priest in Kilvarnet,
My brother in Moharabuiee.

I passed my brother and cousin:
They read in their books of prayer;
I read in my book of songs
I bought at the Sligo fair.

When we come at the end of time,
To Peter sitting in state,
He will smile on the three old spirits,
But call me first through the gate;

For the good are always the merry,
Save by an evil chance,
And the merry love the fiddle
And the merry love to dance:

And when the folk there spy me,
They will all come up to me,
With ‘Here is the fiddler of Dooney!'
And dance like a wave of the sea.

Grass by Carl Sandburg

Grass
Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo.
Shovel them under and let me work--
I am the grass; I cover all.

And pile them high at Gettysburg
And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun.
Shovel them under and let me work.
Two years, ten years, and the passengers ask the conductor:

What place is this?
Where are we now?

I am the grass.
Let me work.

The Jaberwocky by Lewis Carroll

The Jaberwocky

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogroves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun

The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:

Long time the manxome foe he sought-

So rested he by the Tumtum tree,

And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,

The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,

Came whiffing through the tugey wood,

And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through

The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!

He left it dead, and with its head

He went galumphing back.

"And hast thou slain the Jaberwork?

Come to my arms, my beamish boy!

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"

He chortled in his joy.

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did grye and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogroves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

Why Dogs Stopped Flying by Kenneth Brewer

Why Dogs Stopped Flying
by Kenneth W. Brewer

Before humans,
dogs flew everywhere.
Their wings of silky fur
wrapped hollow bones.
Their tails wagged
like rudders through wind,
their stomachs bare
to the sullen earth.


Out of sorrow
for the first humans--
stumbling, crawling,
helpless and cold--
dogs folded their
great wings into paws
soft enough to walk
beside us forever.

They still weep for us,
pity our small noses,
our unfortunate eyes,
our dull teeth.

They lick our faces clean,
keep us warm at night.
Sometimes they remember flying
and bite our ugly hands.

Valley by Andrea Seek

Valley

I know the hand before I perceive the name.
A letter, both welcome and generous
Mailed by souls, to me, long dead and buried...

Dry bones
these friends jump up
Assemble themselves
En~flesh and en~tendon
Whirl with spirit.

Comes, O'breath of the four winds and
enters in
I gasp, rattled
God's hand upon me
These slain shall rise!

Ivy Rose by Andrea Seek

Ivy Rose

Your mother rests
exhausted, engorged and asleep,
on polyester sheets, hospital issue.

I fold into the chair at the bedside
somnolent, awake, and then adrift again.

I heard once of a fetus
who sang through its gestation
private, for the mother -
though you were quiet then.

Now you chuckle all night long
this first night of your life
muffled laughter from the isolette above me.

I am sure I was awake.