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Sestina (Elizabeth Bishop)
September rain falls on the house.
In the falling light, the old grandmother
sits in the kitchen with the child
beside the Little Marvel Stove,
reading the jokes from the almanac,
laughing and talking to hide her tears.
She thinks that her equinoctial tears
and the rain that beats on the roof of the house
were both foretold by the almanac,
but only known to a grandmother.
The iron kettle sings on the stove.
She cuts some bread and says to the child,
it’s time for tea now; but the child
is watching the tea kettle’s small hard tears
dance like mad on the hot black stove,
the way the rain must dance on the house.
Tidying up, the old grandmother
hangs up the clever almanac
on its string. Birdlike, the almanac
hovers half open above the child,
hovers above the old grandmother
and her teacup full of dark brown tears.
She shivers and says she thinks the house
feels chilly, and puts more wood on the stove.
It was to be, says the Marvel Stove.
I know what I know, says the almanac.
With crayons the child draws a rigid house
and a winding pathway. Then the child
puts in a man with buttons like tears
and shows it proudly to the grandmother.
But secretly, while the grandmother
busies herself about the stove,
the little moons fall down like tears
from between the pages of the almanac
into the flower bed the child
has carefully placed in the front of the house.
Time to plant tears, says the almanac.
The grandmother sings to the marvellous stove
and the child draws another inscrutable house.
*
Sestina d’Inverno (Anthony Hecht)
Here in this bleak city of Rochester,
Where there are twenty-seven words for "snow,"
Not all of them polite, the wayward mind
Basks in some Yucatan of its own making,
Some coppery, sleek lagoon, or cinnamon island
Alive with lemon tints and burnished natives,
And O that we were there. But here the natives
Of this gray, sunless city of Rochester
Have sown whole mines of salt about their land
(Bare ruined Carthage that it is) while snow
Comes down as if The Flood were in the making.
Yet on that ocean Marvell called the mind
An ark sets forth which is itself the mind,
Bound for some pungent green, some shore whose natives
Blend coriander, cayenne, mint in making
Roasts that would gladden the Earl of Rochester
With sinfulness, and melt a polar snow.
It might be well to remember that an island
Was a blessed haven once, more than an island,
The grand, utopian dream of a noble mind.
In that kind climate the mere thought of snow
Was but a wedding cake; the youthful natives,
Unable to conceive of Rochester,
Made love, and were acrobatic in the making.
Dream as we may, there is far more to making
Do than some wistful reverie of an island,
Especially now when hope lies with the Rochester
Gas and Electric Co., which doesn’t mind
Such profitable weather, while the natives
Sink like Pompeians, under a world of snow.
The one thing indisputable here is snow,
The single verity of heaven’s making,
Deeply indifferent to the dreams of the natives
And the torn hoarding-posters of some island.
Under our igloo skies the frozen mind
Holds to one truth: it is gray, and called Rochester.
No island fantasy survives Rochester,
Where to the natives destiny is snow
That is neither to our mind nor of our making.
*
The Painter (John Ashbery)
Sitting between the sea and the buildings
He enjoyed painting the sea’s portrait.
But just as children imagine a prayer
Is merely silence, he expected his subject
To rush up the sand, and, seizing a brush,
Plaster its own portrait on the canvas.
So there was never any paint on his canvas
Until the people who lived in the buildings
Put him to work: "Try using the brush
As a means to an end. Select, for a portrait,
Something less angry and large, and more subject
To a painter’s moods, or, perhaps, to a prayer."
How could he explain to them his prayer
That nature, not art, might usurp the canvas?
He chose his wife for a new subject,
Making her vast, like ruined buildings,
As if, forgetting itself, the portrait
Had expressed itself without a brush.
Slightly encouraged, he dipped his brush
In the sea, murmuring a heartfelt prayer:
"My soul, when I paint this next portrait
Let it be you who wrecks the canvas."
The news spread like wildfire through the buildings:
He had gone back to the sea for his subject.
Imagine a painter crucified by his subject!
Too exhausted even to lift his brush,
He provoked some artists leaning from the buildings
To malicious mirth: "We haven’t a prayer
Now, of putting ourselves on canvas,
Or getting the sea to sit for a portrait!"
Others declared it a self-portrait.
Finally all indications of a subject
Began to fade, leaving the canvas
Perfectly white. He put down the brush.
At once a howl, that was also a prayer,
Arose from the overcrowded buildings.
They tossed him, the portrait, from the tallest of the buildings;
And the sea devoured the canvas and the brush
As though his subject had decided to remain a prayer.
*
A Dream Sestina (Donald Justice)
I woke by first light in a wood
Right in the shadow of a hill
And saw about me in a circle
Many I knew, the dear faces
Of some I recognized as friends.
I knew that I had lost my way.
They stared at me like blocks of wood.
They turned their backs on me, those friends,
And struggled up the stubborn hill
Along that road which makes a circle.
No longer could I see their faces.
But there were trees with human faces.
Afraid, I ran a little way
But must have wandered in a circle.
I had not left that human wood;
I was no farther up the hill.
And all the while I heard my friends
Discussing me, but not like friends.
Through gaps in trees I glimpsed their faces.
(The trees grow crooked on that hill.)
Now all at once I saw the way:
Above a clearing in the wood
A lone bird wheeling in a circle,
And in that shadowed space the circle
Of those I thought of still as friends.
I drew near, calling, and the wood
Rang and they turned their deaf faces
This way and that, but not my way.
They rose and danced upon the hill.
And it grew dark. Behind the hill
The sun slid down, a fiery circle;
Screeching, the bird flew on her way.
It was too dark to see my friends.
But then I saw them, and their faces
Were leaning above me like a wood.
Round me they circle on the hill.
But what is wrong with my friends’ faces?
Why have they changed that way to wood?
*
Sestina on Six Words by Weldon Kees (Donald Justice)
I often wonder about the others
Where they are bound for on the voyage,
What is the reason for their silence,
Was there some reason to go away?
It may be they carry a dark burden,
Expect some harm, or have done harm.
How can we show we mean no harm?
Approach them? But they shy from others.
Offer, perhaps, to share the burden?
They change the subject to the voyage,
Or turn abruptly, walk away,
To brood against the rail in silence.
What is defeated by their silence
More than love, less than harm?
Many already are looking their way,
Pretending not to. Eyes of others
Will follow them now the whole voyage
And add a little to the burden.
Others touch hands to ease the burden,
Or stroll, companionable in silence,
Counting the stars which bless the voyage,
But let the foghorn speak of harm,
Their hearts will stammer like the others’,
Their hands seem in each other’s way.
It is so obvious, in a way.
Each is alone, each with his burden.
To others always they are others,
And they can never break the silence,
Say, lightly, thou, but to their harm
Although they make many a voyage.
What do they wish for from the voyage
But to awaken far away
By miracle free from every harm,
Hearing at dawn that sweet burden
The birds cry after a long silence?
Where is that country not like others?
There is no way to ease the burden.
The voyage leads on from harm to harm,
A land of others and of silence.
*
How the Sestina (Yawn) Works (Anne Waldman)
I opened this poem with a yawn
thinking how tired I am of revolution
the way it’s presented on television
isn’t exactly poetry
You could use some more methedrine
if you ask me personally
People should be treated personally
there’s another yawn
here’s some more methedrine
Thanks! Now about this revolution
What do you think? What is poetry?
Is it like television?
Now I get up and turn off the television
Whew! It was getting to me personally
I think it is like poetry
Yawn it’s 4 AM yawn yawn
This new record is one big revolution
if you were listening you’d understand methedrine
isn’t the greatest drug no not methedrine
it’s no fun for watching television
You want to jump up have a revolution
about something that affects you personally
When you’re busy and involved you never yawn
it’s more like feeling, like energy, like poetry
I really like to write poetry
it’s more fun than grass, acid, THC, methedrine
If I can’t write I start to yawn
and it’s time to sit back, watch television
see what’s happening to me personally:
war, strike, starvation, revolution
This is a sample of my own revolution
taking the easy way out of poetry
I want it to hit you all personally
like a shot of extra-strong methedrine
so you’ll become your own television
Become your own yawn!
O giant yawn, violent revolution
silent television, beautiful poetry
most deadly methedrine
I choose all of you for my poem personally
*
To Her Cat (Mary Kinzie)
The cat still has to do a lot of sewing,
But drowses on. The rug matches the kitty.
She can see the shadows at the window
Of the little birds fresh from their bathing.
Sprinkling light below them like white flour
---Or perhaps these were the birdies’ children?
She had had a number of cat children:
Where were they? Now she must start sewing
For her family with the cloth like flour,
White as the bib-front of her smallest kitty.
She would have to teach it to start bathing.
There went wings, delicious, past the window.
Blissful to sleep on beside a window
Never giving thought to tasks or children,
Never mending, mincing, toying, bathing—
It was a cycle. She forgot the sewing
And dreamed about the pouncing of a kitty
On a nest, which scattered heaps of flour.
To make supper she would soak the flour
In her own milk bowl, and set it by the window,
To be out of sight of her young kitty.
You could never discipline such children
Let alone get them to practice sewing
Or to master the paw stroke of bathing.
You must wet the paw to do your bathing;
She imagined coating it in flour.
You must thread a needle to start sewing;
You must grow to wood beside the window
(She imagined cautioning her children),
So that you might catch a meal for kitty.
But this will not happen to her kitty
Who was still attempting to learn bathing.
Aggravation is the way of children:
She would have to sprinkle them with flour…
Then she saw the scissors at her window,
Winging past the basket filled with sewing.
The plump kitty settles in the flour,
Does her bathing by the rippling window
While her children tangle in the sewing.
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