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The Waking (Theodore Roethke)
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.
We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.
Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me; so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.
This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.
Mutability (W. D. Snodgrass)
It was all different; that, at least, seemed sure.
We still agreed—but only that she’d changed.
Some things that you still loved might still endure.
You woke in your own, big, dove-tailed bed, secure
And warm—but the whole room felt rearranged.
It was all different; that, at least, seemed sure.
The lamp stood four-square—like your furniture;
The air’d gone tinged, though, or the light deranged.
Some things that you still loved might still endure
Outside. Your fields stretched, a parched upland moor
Where shadows paired and split, where lean shapes ranged.
It was all different; that, at least seemed sure
And that, from here on in, you could count on fewer
Second chances. Some rules might be arranged;
Some things that you still loved might still endure,
Though some old friends would close, soon, for the pure
Joy of the kill—no prisoners exchanged.
It was all different; that, at least, seemed sure.
Maybe the injuries weren’t past all cure.
No luck lasts; yours might not, too long, stay estranged;
Some things that you still loved might still endure.
It was all different; that, at least, seemed sure
Villanelle (William Jay Smith)
You rise to walk yet when you fly you sit;
The young are not so young as the old are old:
People with hair are always combing it.
The mountain now can come to Mahomet,
An offering on wings of beaten gold:
You rise to walk yet when you fly you sit.
Malherbe, whose rhetoric obscured his wit,
Read poems to his cook when dolphins bowled:
People with hair are always combing it.
This pig, the World, is roasted on a spit;
That pig today were better pigeonholed:
You rise to walk yet when you rise you sit.
We comb the country for the shoes that fit;
The mushroom grows where now the wings unfold:
People with hair are always combing it.
The laurel has been cut, the flares are lit;
The people wait, the pilot’s hands are cold:
You rise to walk yet when you fly you sit;
People with hair are always combing it.
School Pictures (Mary Jo Salter)
Nobody wants them, not even Mom. And Dad
always pretends they fell out of his wallet.
Not even at thirteen could we look that bad.
Maybe it’s trick photography, like an ad.
We combed our hair. When did somebody maul it?
Nobody wants them, not even Mom and Dad.
No self-respecting kid would wear that plaid.
She looks so Eighties in that whatchamacallit.
Not even at thirteen could we look that bad.
Say cheese at 9 a.m.? Jeez, we were mad.
But we meant to please the public, not appall it.
Nobody wants them. Not even Mom and Dad,
Homely as they are, have ever had
a girl you might mistake for Tobias Smollett.
Not even at thirteen could we look that bad.
We could try to call it art, the latest fad,
but could we find a gallery to install it?
Nobody wants them, not even Mom and Dad.
Not even at thirteen could we look that bad.
Little L.A. Villanelle (Carol Muske Dukes)
I drove home that night in the rain.
The gutterless streets filled and overflowed.
After months of drought, the old refrain:
A cheap love song on the radio, off-key pain.
Through the maddening, humble gesture of the wipers,
I drove home that night in the rain.
Hollywood sign, billboard sex: a red stain
spreading over a woman’s face, caught mid-scream.
After months of drought, the old refrain.
Marquees on Vine, lit up, name after name,
starring in what eager losses: he dreamed
I drove home that night in the rain.
Smoldering brush, high in the hills. Some inane
preliminary spark: then tiers of falling reflected light.
After months of drought, the old refrain.
I wanted another life, now it drives beside me
on the slick freeway, now it waves, faster, faster—
I drove home that night in the rain.
After months of drought, the old refrain.
Martha ( Kate Light)
After Martha Graham
Where can he turn to find her answer?
There as it seems the gods propel--
Where you must move in measure, like a dancer.
She feels it, knows it is her chance for
life. She reads her bones--they spell:
There you can turn to find your anwer.
The contraction that, in fact, expands her
becomes her cornerstone--drama unparalleled.
You must move in measure, be a dancer.
Stare in mirrors, catoptromancer.
The men you love you will repel.
They’ll not turn out to be the answer.
It grows inside her, the entrancer
that will never be expelled--
Do not dance like any other dancer.
Your letters to the world--in glance or
gesture, breath and fall--will be upheld.
Who could she turn to--There was no answer
but to move in measure, like a dancer.
Lonely Hearts (Wendy Cope)
Can someone make my simple wish come true?
Male biker seeks female for touring fun.
Do you live in North London? Is it you?
Gay vegetarian whose friends are few,
I’m into music, Shakespeare and the sun.
Can someone make my simple wish come true?
Executive in search of something new—
Perhaps bisexual woman, arty, young.
Do you live in North London? Is it you?
Successful, straight and solvent? I am too—
Attractive Jewish lady with a son.
Can someone make my simple wish come true?
I’m Libran, inexperienced and blue—
Need slim non-smoker, under twenty-one.
Do you live in North London? Is it you?
Please write (with photo) to Box 152.
Who knows where it may lead once we’ve begun?
Can someone make my simple wish come true?
Do you live in North London? Is it you?
1857 (William Logan)
The Fleurs du mal betray the Fleurs de l’Inde
Rimbaud would promise Une Saison en enfer.
In these and other versions we have sinned.
Her sailors brought to France the tamarind
that graced the hothouse garden’s jardinière,
but Fleurs du mal betray the Fleurs de l’Inde.
L’Orientalisme’s fading wind
gabbles at the gaslight like a prayer.
In these and other versions we have sinned.
The public gardens grow undisciplined.
Traduttore traditore, declare
the Fleurs du mal but not the Fleurs de l’Inde.
Read Proust, Verlaine, or Mallarme, chagrined
by all such orchids suffer unaware
of these and other versions. We have sinned
each time a word of ours has helped rescind
the privilege of lies. Or words of theirs.
The Fleurs du mal betray the Fleurs de l’Inde.
In these and other versions we have sinned.
Pearl (Annie Finch)
Reaching with eyes, they covered her as a girl,
leaving a grain of gaze, the irritant stare
women must cover everywhere, with pearl.
Even in her own room alone, she curled
back from the windows gleaming with their glare.
Reaching with eyes, they covered her, as a girl,
stopping her gaze with a long look, unfurled,
taking her in as if she belonged there,
a woman covered everywhere, with pearls
draping her throat, before she learned to whirl
beside the mirror, pierce her ears, or twine her hair.
Reaching with eyes, they covered her, as a girl
covers and hunches herself in, to coil
less of her toward the voyeur. But beware.
Women can cover everything, like pearls
orbed and alive. A living ocean swirls;
we encompass it and spiral everywhere.
Reaching with eyes, they covered, in the girl,
what the woman covers; everything, like pearl.
We Wear the Mask (Paul Laurence Dunbar,
a rondeau)
We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes—
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.
Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.
We smile, but oh great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask!
The Siege (Charles d’Orleans, a rondel)
To his Mistress, to succour his heart that is beleaguered
by jealousy.
My Love, strengthen this castle of my heart,
And with some store of pleasure give me aid,
For Jealousy, with all who take his part,
About the failing tower strong siege has laid.
Nay, if to break his grip thou art afraid,
Too weak to make his cruel force depart,
At least strengthen this castle of my heart,
And with some store of pleasure give me aid.
Nay, let not Jealousy, for all his art,
Be master, and the tower in ruins laid
That still, ah Love! Thy gracious rule obeyed.
Advance and give me succour on thy part;
My Love, strengthen this castle of my heart,
And with some store of pleasure give me aid.
Wagers (Marilyn Hacker)
(This poem is a variation on the form, an elongated
villanelle)
I bet you don’t wear shoulder pads in bed.
I bet when we get over, we’ll be bad!
I bet you blush all over when you come.
Although the butch coach gave them out, and said,
they’re regulation issue for the team,
I bet you don’t wear shoulder pads in bed;
and if I whispered something just unseem-
ly enough, I could make your ears turn red.
I bet you blush all over when you come
to where I say, I slept on what we did,
and didn’t, then undressed you in a dream.
I bet you don’t wear shoulder pads in bed.
I bet my blue pajamas split a seam
while I thought of my hand on you instead.
I bet you blush all over when you come.
Maybe I’ll spend Bastille Day feeling bad,
deferring fireworks till the troops get home
--I bet you don’t wear shoulder pads in bed.
Don’t give me any, just promise me some.
I’m having nicer nightmares than I had.
I bet you blush all over when you come,
but I can bide my time until it’s bid-
dable (though, damn, you make me squirm;
I bet you don’t wear shoulder pads in bed),
wait till the strawberries are ripe for cream,
and get to give, for having kept my head.
I bet you blush all over when you come.
I bet you don’t wear shoulder pads in bed.
Entropic Villanelle (Tom Disch)
Things break down in different ways.
The odds say croupiers will win.
We can’t, for that, omit their praise.
I have had heartburn several days,
And it’s ten years since I’ve been thin.
Things break down in different ways.
Green is the lea and smooth as baize
Where witless sheep crop Jessamine
(We can’t, for that, omit their praise)
And meanwhile melanomas graze
Upon the meadows of the skin
(Things break down in different ways).
Though apples spoil, and meat decays,
And teeth erode like aspirin,
We can’t, for that, omit their praise.
The odds still favor croupiers,
But give the wheel another spin.
Things break down in different ways:
We can’t, for that, omit their praise.
Parsley (Rita Dove)
~ The Cane Fields
There is a parrot imitating spring
in the palace, its feathers parsley green.
Out of the swamp the cane appears
to haunt us, and we cut it down. El General
searches for a word; he is all the world
there is. Like a parrot imitating spring,
we lie down screaming as rain punches through
and we come up green. We cannot speak an R—
out of the swamp, the cane appears
and then the mountain we call in whispers Katalina.
The children gnaw their teeth to arrowheads.
There is a parrot imitating spring.
El General has found his word: perejil.
Who says it, lives. He laughs, teeth shining
Out of the swamp. The cane appears
in our dreams, lashed by wind and streaming.
And we lie down. For every drop of blood
there is a parrot imitating spring.
Out of the swamp the cane appears.
~ The Palace
The word the general’s chosen is parsley.
It is fall, when thoughts turn
to love and death; the general thinks
of his mother, how she died in the fall
and he planted her walking cane at the grave
and it flowered, each spring stolidly forming
four-star blossoms. The general
pulls on his boots, he stomps to
her room in the palace, the one without
curtains, the one with a parrot
in a brass ring. As he paces he wonders
Who can I kill today. And for a moment
the little knot of screams
is still. The parrot, who has traveled
all the way from Australia in an ivory
cage, is, coy as a widow, practicing
spring. Ever since the morning
his mother collapsed in the kitchen
while baking skull-shaped candies
for the Day of the Dead, the general
has hated sweets. He orders pastries
brought up for the bird; they arrive
dusted with sugar on a bed of lace.
The knot in his throat starts to twitch;
he sees his boots the first day in battle
splashed with mud and urine
as a soldier falls at his feet amazed—
how stupid he looked!—at the sound
of artillery. I never thought it would sing
the soldier said, and died. Now
the general sees the fields of sugar
cane, lashed by rain and streaming.
He sees his mother’s smile, the teeth
gnawed to arrowheads. He hears
the Haitians sing without R’s
as they swing the great machetes:
Katalina, they sing, Katalina,
mi madle, mi amol, en muelte. God knows
his mother was no stupid woman; she
could roll an R like a queen. Even
a parrot can roll an R! In the bare room
the bright feathers arch in a parody
of greenery, as the last pale crumbs
disappear under the blackened tongue. Someone
calls out his name in a voice
so like his mother’s, a startled tear
splashes the tip of his right boot.
My mother, my love in death.
The general remembers the tiny green sprigs
men of his village wore in their capes
to honor the birth of a son. He will
order many, this time, to be killed
for a single, beautiful word.
*Note: Section one of Parsley is a villanelle. Put section
1 together with section 2, and you also have a fine narrative
poem. There are no limits to the use of form but the limits
of imagination.
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